book "gardening when it counts"/no dig

[hedwig]

I've borrowed a book "gardening when it counts", by Steve Soloman.
I think it's quite interesting, however I am not shure if what he writes does apply to realy warm subtropical climates like SE QLD.

He writes completely against the "No Dig Method!", one of the main reasons is the amount of material you have to add every year. (Which I is a big concern of myself as well - in terms of money and petrol (=pollution)).
He mentions other reaseons like introducing of weed seeds and less nutritient vegetable.

I begun to lay out two beds with materials but I didn't start planting yet due tro the lack of rain I rethink if I start completely different and dig first the complete area of lawn (which will bedifficult becauseit is so dry or perhaps I irrigate wioth washing machine water first)

What are your experiences dig vs no dig method??

Further he recommended buying seeds only buy reputaded resellers (however he recommended very few and some in the US - what I myself thinks is a bit exaggerated buyin radish seeds from US suppliers). But perhaps he's going much too far there.
He recommends buying seeds regioal but how could someone kow if they buy their seeds regional?

[gardenlen]

g'day hedwig,

basically at the end of the day it won't matter that much to the plants BUT!

digging is a lot of toil for dubiuos results at the end of the day, to me our old habits of digging was akin to trying to dominate nature.

as for the other offal he said it doesn't matter what or which you need to add organic matter to all gardens at least once a season, so if you are going to add compost (most people could never create enough), or composts etc.,. etc.,. then you will be buying them in and they will all come from an unknown source. bet he advocated using man made chemical type fertilisers too??

for me not breaking my back attempting to dominate nature and ruin the soil structure to boot raised beds are if nothing else a lot less strain, you do not need to buy material for edges, many gardeners never put edges around, so all that aside raised beds means you don't need an arsenal of digging tools.

so i would suggest digging gardens is more polluting that raised beds if gardening is pollution causing that is?

in all our time we have never introduced anything but benefits from all the organic matter needed for garden beds.

let the worms do the digging, throw some mushy compost on the ground (making use of a recyclable resource) if you have some one with horse stable near by add some manure (material needed in all gardens) another recyclable resource.

authors need to sell books so being controversial does just that.

i'm one of the bugger the seeds part buy seedlings, cut to the chase.

len

[MonteGoulding]

He writes completely against the "No Dig Method!", one of the main reasons is the amount of material you have to add every year. (Which I is a big concern of myself as well - in terms of money and petrol (=pollution)).

I haven't read this book but I've heard a good report on it. I think it's important to think about the resources we are relying on to keep our gardens running and if they will be around into the future.

I've done a no-dig here but since we got the chooks I've moved on to a movable pen system which is working well. I still buy trailer loads of compost though.


He recommends buying seeds regioal but how could someone kow if they buy their seeds regional?

Joining a seed savers group in your area and saving seed from your own site is the best way to go. Over seasons of saving seed from your best plants you will gradually get a variety that performs the way you want at your house.

Cheers

Monte

[hedwig]

when we last rented a house I had a somewhat mixed approach because I didn't want to buy compost for rented land. Now we have our own It's more reasonable spend some money. However buying trailerloads of compost every season seems to me quite expensive. I hope getting independent after buying an initial load , perhaps some sugarcae or whatever fom time to time.

The thing is that the book is written in Tasmania, like most other australian Gardening books written south of Sydney (it's a bit like reading a Dutch gardening book living in Rome)

[Muddy]

Hello hedwig and others. My 1st post in this forum as I couldn't resist a thread on 'no dig' my favourite gardening method. I break in a new bit of lawn (eventually I won't have a blade of grass) by laying out a no dig patch and grow spuds. Just 4 logs, a layer of newspaper, a few grass clippings or anything green, seed potatoes 2 feet apart, some manure and a 12 inch layer of cane trash. Costs $40 for 50 kilos of seed and $15 for a large round bale of cane tops. This produces masses of spuds over about 6 months and is the fastest selling vege on my roadside stall. Next season I usually plant a crop of lettuce, silver beet etc. without any preparation of the bed and after 2 years I start again with a new layer of newspaper etc. I have only a limited water supply and I find this method rarely needs watering after the initial soaking.

[digging]

I would think that after your garden area has been opened up and perhaps the first year a larger amount of things added like sand or extra compost the no-dig would work very well, it's seems to work well in the forest??
Last year I left all my beds in the spring I just nipped off any new weeds with by razor hoe and put in my transplants, then I mulched with very old compost. What was very interesting and I did not reconize is by the fall in the soil layer there were all these long white roots going through the upper layer of soil. I believe now they are the roots of benefical soil mycorrhizas fungi.

Digging

[Plumtree]

I have never had any luck with this 'no-dig' gardening! It may work in some areas that are blessed with good soil. When you have a shallow top soil you have to do a bit of hard work. We have plenty of manure and composted straw to work with so we don't have to import any. We churn up the soil and mix in tiny wood chips, straw, household compost and manure. The best thing for soil is to have something growing in it to keep it 'alive', grass seems to be too shallow rooted. Potatoes seem especially good because they seem to break up the soil.

A good compost area is a blessing because you can throw most things in, includung weeds, for a good result.

[Muddy]

The whole point of the thing is you don't need soil at all. I saw a fantastic no dig garden laid out on an old asphalt tennis court. As a result of the lack of soil my potatoes come up perfectly clean without washing.

[hedwig]

I think i'll go on with a somewath mixed approach, because it is really hard to introduce all the materials you need for no dig. I always hoes the beds and hoed new materials in and then I mulched or not depending on the crop.

[Tezza]

Theres been plenty of disscussion re no dig gardening

Hey spades,shovells and garden forks belong in meuseams not garden sheds

Turning over the soil destroys the soil micro biology it interfears so much its can take months to settle down again...

I wish i could recomend a book ...Try Esther deans no dig gardening,and a whole range of no dig garden facts.....

Lens got it right....Ive never used a shovel or spade in my 24X19 garden,if i use a tool its a garden trowel,for transplanting or planting seedlings from punnets..You dont need a spade to sow seeds, or transplant seedlings..

Personally if a person is digging holes in their garden there doing Permaculture wrong somewhere.....

Tezza

[Muddy]

I couldn't agree with you more in recommending Esther Dean's no dig book. That book got me started in a new way of 'lazy man's' gardening.
However I also use the spade to turn all the good stuff into my very poor topsoil after a couple of years of no dig. The trick is to wait until the soil is dry and crumbly, when the worms and other critters have headed deeper down. By doing this I have created extremely fertile garden beds full of worms and life out of a rubble backyard that would hardly grow a weed

[Tezza]

Listen Muddy ..

When I heard bout the Lazy way of Gardening I took to it like a Duck to water,worm,insects or antything else ducks love...Just to see if it could actually work ...

Trumpets sounds Da de ah Dahhhhhhh.........It realy does work....

I think Uncle bill says something like An Hours thought can save a dozen years of waste, and if thats not truly what he said ,well ive said it :lol: :lol: :lol:

Permaculture isnt gung Ho full steam ahead plant,dig,cut,saw,hammer,drill, Pass The fruit juice please love stuff....

I think Bill also said that only an hour is needed a week if its done properly,
Do it for 5 years then get out there and show others how to do it..

Its suposed to be SELF sufficient,after 5 years, If you nurse it gently for 5 then go off itll be dead before u return,
Permaculture is based on Rain forest Principles, Not the better homes and gardens show....


Tezza

[Muddy]

Sorry Tezza but you lost me in the last 3 paragraphs except for the bit about Rain Forest principles.
I live on the edge of a rain forest and I like to observe what goes on on on the forest floor. Anything organic (animal or vegetable) that falls on the ground is imediately pounced on by hoards of insects and grubs and dragged down holes or cracks to some underground food store. Larger animals such as bandicoots, echidnas, pigs etc come along and dig up everything in their search for those insects and grubs leaving the soil looking as though it has been rotary hoed. This allows moisture to reach that half buried tree seed and presto a new tree is born.
That's what happens in my garden also.

[Tezza]

Yeah you got it muddy

Dont worry mate i type as i talk its mix of English and Aussie 8) 8) 8) 8)



Tezza

[Jez]

As I recall, Steve Soloman is the bloke someone else mentioned a while back who insists that mulching is only viable in the tropics because of snail and slug problems in cool temperate and temperate climates.

Apparently he doesn't know about ducks, chooks, or any of the many organic control methods.

Obviously, it is best to grow your own mulch if you can (and that is possible - even on a 1/4 acre block), but it should be possible in most urban areas to get good organic, low weed seed bedding material.

I haven't read his book, but personally, from what I've heard, I don't think it has much good advice...it sounds like he could really benefit from doing a PDC! :lol:

[digging]

I have read the book,

One point I do think he makes that is good, he says people need to plant less densely, that present gardens are to dependant on extra water, which is a good point!

Dig

[SueinWA]

I've got to agree with Len and Tezza here!

You've got to feed the soil to get the crops, and that's a fact you can't ignore. If this Soloman chappie isn't feeding his soil, his garden is going to deteriorate fast. You can either dig the compost/manure/grass clippings, etc in, and expose the worms, other beneficial creatures, useful fungi, and microbes to the drying air and sun, which WILL set them back, or you can put the same compost/manure/grass clippings, etc on top of the soil and let the worms, insects, and microbes work them into the soil for you. Sure it disappears! But it isn't evaporating into the air, it's being worked into the soil by your healthy microherd of soil beasties! They're doing all your work for you, and for FREE!

By not using mulch, that hot Aussie sun will bake your soil and destroy the nutrients in it. Maybe Soloman has all the water in the world coming from his spigot. Do you? The mulch prevents the drying of the soil, and less watering will keep the nutrients much nearer to the plant roots, where they need it. Here in the NW of the U.S., we get so much rainfall in much of the year that a lot of our soil nutrients are washed beyond the reach of many shallow-rooted plants. We have to add things like calcium because the rain washes it away.

And when your soil has lots of nutrients in it, you can plant closer together, which will also help to shade the soil/mulch.

Mulch leads to snails and slugs? I live in the slug capital of the WORLD. I've discovered a few things about slugs: they like shade and moisture, they like acidic conditions, and you have to starve them for more than two years to kill one. So, am I going to give up gardening because of them? NO. When the plants are fairly large, I lift the mulch before adding a fresh layer, and let my chookies poke around for a bit. I also sprinkle some dolomite lime around, as my soil is quite acid. Slugs hate lime? Too bad! I also sprinkle some non-toxic-to-pets&kids iron-phosphate-based slug bait, which breaks down into soil nutrients -- very effective.

I live in an area that is cooler than you, and everything I read said tomatoes need warm soil, so don't use mulch. My tomatoes grew so slowly between cool nights and water stress, that I decided to ignore all the 'rules' and mulch the plants. And I had the best crop of tomatoes EVER. They grew faster, ripened faster. I would have gotten more cherry tomatoes if I didn't have a dog that likes them, too (a Belgian Tervuren Harvester).

And about those weed seeds: if you keep the mulch thick enough to keep out the light, they won't sprout. And if they do sprout, they're easy to pull. You just yank them out and lay them on top to wither in the sun: they've just been changed from a weed to mulch!

I don't know how fruit & veg seeds are produced in Oz, but here we have both large seed companies that buy from all over the country (thus all climate zones), and smaller seed companies that grow all their own. For instance, Territorial Seed in Oregon is in the same climate zone that I am, about 4 hours south of me. I feel confident that virtually everything they sell would grow here. That's what he meant by buying locally. There are many seed companies that sell seeds of plants that require longer growing seasons or higher temperatures than my area can provide.

Many people have been growing open-pollinated heritage fruit and veg varieties for years, sometimes generations. Since they save seed from the best plants, over the years they produce seeds that are the best for their particular area. There are online seed exchanges that can put you in touch with such people in Oz. The Australian Garden Exchange is one, at http://www.au.gardenweb.com/forums/exoz/

Sue

[Jez]

Well said Sue.


I have read the book,

One point I do think he makes that is good, he says people need to plant less densely, that present gardens are to dependant on extra water, which is a good point!

Dig

G'day Dig,

If you plant living mulch species which are selected specifically to survive mostly on natural rainfall, design for a stacked polyculture system and fill up all the space possible, you harvest a lot of extra moisture from the air and prevent the sun from drying out the ground anywhere near as quickly as it does when you space plants out...particularly when you don't use surface mulch and you don't add organic matter to the soil - like Solomon recommends.

His methods mean you actually use MORE water to grow much less.

One of the key principles of Permaculture is to observe, learn from, and imitate natural systems.

What does 'nature' do if we leave gaps between plants?

It fills them up right? (even if it has to use a weed)

Just like a natural forest or grassland.

Even in the driest areas which aren't full blown deserts or badly drought affected, while there may be an open canopy and well spaced trees, there is grass and other lower growing species between them to shade the ground and protect the soil.

[digging]

Yes that is a good point, so then we have two choices to cover the soil. One is to mulch the other is more plants? I've been thinking of trying a combination. I was reading and in England some are growing low clovers under their crops and they say it's working really well. So with some plants that might not do as well with the extra compeition I'll try plain mulch with good spacing. The challenge we have it seems is that so much of our food is still from annuals, but annuals do grow in the wild so we just need to recreate that style?

Digging

[Jez]

Yes that is a good point, so then we have two choices to cover the soil. One is to mulch the other is more plants? I've been thinking of trying a combination.


Either is much better than having bare soil...which is better of the two depends somewhat on your situation - how much land you have, how much food you need to grow, what your climate (including rainfall) and soil type is, how you need to irrigate, how much time you can put into producing food, whether you can obtain or produce your own good quality organic inputs (manure, mulch, compost etc) easily and affordably.

All these things are factors in which method you would choose to use.

For instance, a person may decide that using mulch with annual beds (which may well be partly something like used bedding material from a chook pen) is better for their individual situation, while using a nitrogen fixing living mulch in their orchard is far more preferable to regularly spreading mulch over a large area.

Alternately, it's quite easy to combine annuals and perennials in the same beds (or wider area) if you know the plants you're using well or are willing to learn through experimentation.




I was reading and in England some are growing low clovers under their crops and they say it's working really well. So with some plants that might not do as well with the extra compeition I'll try plain mulch with good spacing.


Clover is a good living mulch because it fixes nitrogen, is easily clipped to add organic matter, provides habitat for beneficial insects, self sows easily, co-exists well with other plants, and is not invasive to the point where a need to remove it becomes a problem.

Generally annual plants which need more space (e.g. vines, spreading tubers and berries - among many others) or to be planted in blocks (e.g. corn and grains - among many others), or are harvested only once or irregularly, are planted in Zone III - as opposed to plants which need less space or need regular picking, which are grown in Zone I (closer to the house). As a rough generalisation, Zone III feeds the world, Zone I provides your daily salad and oft picked vegies and herbs.

So there is a distinction in Permaculture design between these types of plants based partly on their space and pollination needs - with the rest stemming from most efficient use of time and energy.

That means that all you have to concern yourself with in your Zone I beds is which plants are good companions for each other (there is a ton of info on this if you search 'companion planting' - they will differ, but the fundamentals are always similar)...any mistakes you make in spacing can be remedied by thinning, or the next time you sow.

From the view of learning about maximising production in Zone I, it's better to plant thickly, then thin things out and learn from that, rather than plant sparsely and get a poor yield for the area used - you don't learn from that and can't gain much from persisting with it.



The challenge we have it seems is that so much of our food is still from annuals, but annuals do grow in the wild so we just need to recreate that style?


Shifting from an intensive annual production diet to a more perennial diet is a good thing to aim for and a recommended Permaculture principle. It saves time and effort for yield gained, and generally helps with overall self-sufficiency. Sometimes, on a small piece of land and in cooler climates it's not that practical to get a majority of your produce from perennials, but always a good thing to aim for if you can manage it. And of course, just as a sidenote, using animals for meat etc is a great 'perennial' way to store energy and food for when you need it.

Some annuals self-sow very easily with no associated problems, others it's sometimes better just to harvest the seed. For example, loose leaf lettuces and salad plants like golden purslane and rocket will self sow very easily to the point where they're a beneficial weed that's everywhere and easily removed if they pop up where you don't want them, while it wouldn't be that advisable from an insect plague perspective, to leave a whole bunch of annual fruits to rot in order to self-sow when you only have a small piece of land. If you have space to play with and are prepared to wait for your system to find a harmonious balance (a search here and on google for Masanobu Fukuoka, his various books, and online material from his 'followers', is a great thing to research if you want to look into producing food this way), then yes, you can just let annuals self-sow and grow 'wild.'

Again, it all depends on your circumstances and which method appeals to you...but I seriously wouldn't recommend the 'Solomon method.' :D

[gardenlen]

yes sue,

couldn't have put it better myself.

one thing that i think about authors who write books like this and need to sell more and more issues, they need to be saying conroversial things so people will buy the copy, i've seen it before with other authors, even seen by presenters on TV shows trying different ways to capture more audience.

i also reckon seeds from your local area do better than seeds from somewhere else, when we where in rural we let our pumpkins grow as volunteers, that is we always misseds some piece of fruit that rotted then seeds would sprout and generally not in a prepared garden, so once developed i would then mulch around them on occassion give them some water but basically the plants where surviving and producing on available rain water (app' 800mm per annum) and they gave us good fruit with pleanty of flesh not a lot of seen inside, we where getting around 7 fruit per vine ranging in size from 3 kilo's to 7 kilo's.

in the early stages as they adapted the fruit was scarce and hollow, but we reckon as only the strongest seeds wher growing that seeds that had the genes that had adapted where growing hence less care from us needed. we had pumpkin vines every year and always more fruit than we could eat so gave heaps away. they also didn't seem to stress as much in the heat of the day and all grew in full sun. got some of those seeds so next season i will be planting here to see what happens.

the only difference being i have selected the seed as against say nature selecting which seeds will grow, the only way i can think of right now to describe what i am trying to say. i also think that volunteers even from seed you may have thrown out from bought fruit gives better production than does bought seeds that you force germinate.

now of course i don't have enought space to allow pumpkins to just grow willy nilly, so not expecting to have that genetic advantage.



len

[digging]

One very notable thing in his book is that he admits his soil wears down and he has to about ever 4 years rotate his whole garden back and forth between a grass plot. Right off that seems like a lot of work to me? Once I get my garden area in I want to leave it where it is! Thanks for those intersting links. Because I am so far north the soil here is very high in carbon in fact just in our local area there has been found over 150 different mushrooms, but most other plants have a much lower diversity.
I will need to play close attention so as to learn how to work within the climate here. I have noticed chicken manuer works really great, most likely because the soil is high in carbon it is sucked up!

Digging

Digging

[gardenlen]

yes digging,

you would need one heck of a yard space for all that flexability as well.

reckon the methods we use would work for you, our process of feeding trhe soil is a continual process, each day food scraps get added (when you add meat type scraps or anything that will attract say your dog, cat or foxes, pour some fesh usirne over that spot, works a treat. in the case of your own dog lay some of his poop there and then a few days or so time remove the poop to say around a fruit a tree.

a new lesson for us in our latest garden bed, we used horse manure from a local stable, after all the medium was laid we let the bed fallow for 14+ days, then planted seedlings so reckon it would have taken at least an extra week or maybe 2 for the roots of those seedling to reach the manure.

we have had some issues we never had with the first manure free bed we did ie.,. the zucchini got desimanted by grubs in the new bed but the plants (planted from same batch at the same time) in the old bed are doing fine (2 plants in each bed), also the ants went crazy and lumbered those plants with heaps of those black aphids, as they did to the snake beans we grew from seed in that bed.

and the 2 ox heart tomato plants (planted at the same time) in the new bed 1 is having the fruit being attacked by grubs so we are losing all the first fruits. but again the tomato's in the old bed (same batch) are doing fine.

not that i have looked specifically but also haven't noticed too many worms in the bed either. to us that indicates that our basic mushroom copmost beds with food scraps daily and using green hay mulches is more in balance than the bed is with the added horse manure from the stalls (lots of urine). so all in all this new bed has been a let down, fingers crossed it may produce better brassicas, so far teh ones we have planted into it are doing slower than in the older bed??!!

we've had lots of gardeners (those who believe we can't breathe without science) try to show our method as being not good they always attack the use of fresh mushroom compost pointing to out of balance ph and lots of stuff, but we have never missed using it that's our only defence. so may never use manure in this context again, go back the the tried and true. K.I.S.S hey our plants always look healthy but attract few bugs normally. you reckon people might pay us if we wrote a book too???? :?

len

[Jez]

One very notable thing in his book is that he admits his soil wears down and he has to about ever 4 years rotate his whole garden back and forth between a grass plot. Right off that seems like a lot of work to me? Once I get my garden area in I want to leave it where it is!


:shock:

The more I hear the more I shudder. Yes, it is a lot of totally unnecessary work. He has to do this because his soil depletes from being left bare and not having any organic matter put back into it. Then he goes and disturbs another patch of soil and corrupts that - while waiting for the last patch to recover from his ignorance.

I better stop there...this bloke makes me want to rant. :lol:




Because I am so far north the soil here is very high in carbon in fact just in our local area there has been found over 150 different mushrooms...


That's a great start in having 'wild' foods easily available...be a great idea to learn to identify all the edible and medicinal varieties...dried mushies are a terrific nutritious thing to have an abundance of in storage.



I will need to play close attention so as to learn how to work within the climate here.


Sounds like that will be your biggest challenge mate, but there's plenty of info out there on maximising production in your sort of climate - the northern European Permaculture folks just for starters. :)

[digging]

I was very luck to beable to talk to the man who did the mushroom study and he said only about 4 of them are truly food, the rest will make you sick or kill you. Something else he said in his research he found out that the local natives NEVER eat any of the mushrooms, but some can be eaten? I am more afraid to eat a mushroom than anything else!
I'm glad a lot of fruit berries will grow here, even hardy crab apples. So then we can stop relying out southern fruits. I will look up that other group you mentioned "northern European Permaculture" thank-you.

Digging

[hedwig]

Hi all, I read further in the book, and I lost all interest. First mulching is really essential here in the subtropics. Second most of the long descriptions he made are quite inexact. Third he does not explain why mulched or sheet mulched gardens produce less nutritient vegetables. Furthermore he only admits to raise seedlinggs to give plants an early start in cold weather - but does not think about too hot weather.
Everything is written in the voice of a very bad humored old man, there is nothing about the passion of gardening.

But the topic of the book is interesting? Why not writing a similar book which covers all alimates? There are so many easy to grow crops like pawpaws, mulberies or chokos (which are really yummy, provided you don't try to make pears out of them). It is very likely that with rising oil prices and natural catastrophes we will pay lots more for food in future.

[Jez]

Wow, sounds like you'd have to be careful with the mushies Dig! Still, four edible species is enough for a good harvest if they're pretty common.

"northern European Permaculture" was just a general area term - as far as I know no such group exists...just a suggestion for finding info if you struggle to find Canada specific info.

A longtime time poster here Douglas J Barnes is Canadian - he will no doubt be a help for info and resources when he gets back from travelling.

[Rev]

im going to buck the dogma here

that book is THE best book ive ever read on the matter of growing vegetables

ive done no dig gardens and they just dont produce as well as real soil does
and ive used mulch in the veggie beds and it just breeds up slaters and encourages snails, brings in weedseed, cost heaps of money, makes weed control difficult

the only soil i can think where mulch helps in the veggie patch is pure sand - like in Perth, and sustainable gardening on that is folly anyway

since i switched to the steve method my veggies are healthier, more drought hardy, i have fewer pests, i can grow carrots again - well
and weeds are so easy to control with the correct spacing using a lightweight swan neck hoe

its not that i hate mulch, i use it but now only on my fruit trees and other forest plants

there are two observations that make me want to kick myself for believing in the no dig veggie patch all so long

1 is that most vegetables are ruderal plants, from or derived from weedy ancestors that thrive on soil disturbance or very rich soils ( as in a few freak natural soils or ephemeral events such as old campsites of animals)
many dont even have mycorrhizal fungal partners - which most plants do and is essential to eke an existence out of most soils
for example the amaranth, chenopodaceae and brassicaceae dont form mycorrhizal associations.
the upside is that these planst make very nutritious food because they take up all the available nutrients and put them into us- another high maintenace species who needs an overly rich nutritional diet

so then to place a ruderal plant in a mulch bed is a little cruel, you make it fight more against time and availability of nutrients so you get less produce

second point is evidence all around me

who traditioanlly grows more and better quality produce? what method stands the test of time

easily the cultivated earth method
In Mexico, Okinawa, china or Vietnam, the meditteranean - oeven out old mate pete cindall in tassie! watch him go with a hoe!
wherever the expert market gardeners are from they all use suprisingly similar methods. And these veggie gardeners OFTEN live to a ripe old age and very fit as well i add into at least their 70's. noderate work and good veggies will do that for ya:)
- because the methods work, and because through the ages those who use the right method can feed bigger families better - and so survive despite being very poor

as an accessible resource i recomend watching vasilis garden on SBS and checking the website for past tips
these guys have the healthiest most productive gardens, and i dont see any mulch
just soil dug to 400mm deep with added manures and compost so the plants fully inhabit the soil depth

dont freak about digging. its not so hard!
if the spade is sharpened its SO much easier as steve points out. i couldnt believe how much easier it was when i sharpened my tools for the first time- and throw away all short handled tools! no wonder i though digging was hard till i got long handled tools
hardly any benidng involed using a spade or how with along handle. do it right and itll be good for you to get light excercise, like a dance with the how, legs bent
i used the COF recipe which is an excellent fertiliser by my experience with it now. i still liquid feed with whatever i can find as the season goes on
if your soil is heavy and horrible the incorporation of compost and calcium minerals like gypsum really break it up over a couple of seasons
its an investmnet of a lifetime! i know now that the soils ive created will just get deeper and better as the years go by

as for his fallow technique its a great idea
my grandparents would do it , abandon the vegetable plot to the kikuyu
and let fertility build up againfor a few years, maybe sow some clover as well, these days id sow chicory too
they would rotary hoe a new patch, id chicken tractror it with heavy stocking, then rotary hoe to kill the sod if not clear

the yields from that method, practiced on various locations on a 3/4 acre block fed my family and me as a child with AMPLE amounst of fresh tasty produce, enough to bottle for a whole year

i know i may seem a blow in, but ive seen ALOT of permie gardens over the years and been involved in it for 12 years now
for developing forest gardesn the mulch is great , but ive never seen mulched vegetable gardens grow the quality and volume of a dug one
the only ones that come close are the chicken or pig tractors ones that use correct high stocking rates to really dig up the soil, and go on rotation with fodder or green manure gardening

Direct sowing also has saved me a heap of money so far
and the concept of the dust mulch really works for moisture conservation

so theres my herecy. but im glad to say it because after using both - ill NEVER go back

FWIW im in a wierd climate thats quite cold and dry in winter and subtropical in summer.

i Highly highly strongly recommend buying the book and trialling it seriously

[ho-hum]

Just as an aside.

Hey, Hay, Hey.. Just how do I mulch my hay crop? Where do you grow mulch in a no-dig garden?

Since when was pea straw available off-farm when it is a valuable farm resource? In all of my life I have never seen 'pea hay' available anywhere, except on TV

Where do you buy organically grown bagasse/sugar cane mulch, pea hay, lucerne and barley straw?

What use is it to use chemically-peppered mulch in an 'organic' vegie garden?

I am not a purist nor a pedant. Permaculture isnt about 'systems' but all about observation and what works for you. If you are spending $$$ a year at Bunnings on 'mulch'.. then so be it.. that's pragmatism but hardly organic or permaculture.

Current tv shows that advocate both permaculture and organics are not the be-all-and-end-all of these disciplines, they go much further than that. Mulch can and must be an integral part of any design. It is one of the reasons I happily grown [OMG!!] lawn, it fits my plan.

BTW... does anyone know of an organic pea farmer that has hay to sell?

floot

[Rev]

round here getting soybean hay is near impossible

on farm conservation methods mean its gets spat out the back onto the field as the bean is harvested
- too precious to sell off

Pea hay is the best of all hays IME
almost a fertiliser not just a mulch

for on site mulch productionthat is sustainable id recommend using vetiver grass, especially if paired with grey and black water nutrient reclamation
Vetiver is fast growing, deep rooted, accumulates large amounts of N and P from effluent and makes a slow to degrade mulch
good for animal bedding, which could then make a fine compost
its a good plant to put anywhere you place omfrey to plug nutrient cycling leaks and feed it back into the system

i just found that terra preta thread
hmmm
a new use for wood chip mulch - carbonisation
brilliant

[Jez]

G'day Rev, welcome to the forum.



im going to buck the dogma here

that book is THE best book ive ever read on the matter of growing vegetables

ive done no dig gardens and they just dont produce as well as real soil does


What gave you the impression they did in the short term? They're for people who wouldn't grow produce otherwise due to the labour or time involved, or for people who want to make a bed where there is NO soil.

Over time they become much more productive than they are intially. That's just common sense right?




and ive used mulch in the veggie beds and it just breeds up slaters and encourages snails, brings in weedseed, cost heaps of money, makes weed control difficult


Encourages food for foragers...brings in no weedseed which will germinate if you turn it occasionally...costs nothing if you scavenge materials ranging from paper and cardboard right through to aluminium foil...smothers weeds and makes any that do germinate easier to pull.




the only soil i can think where mulch helps in the veggie patch is pure sand


And yet Soloman says it's only useful in the tropics...you're both wrong I'm afraid. There's plenty of scientific and anecdotal data covering decades which overwhelmingly demonstrates that mulches of many different substances improve crop yields - in all climatic zones.




- like in Perth, and sustainable gardening on that is folly anyway


Ah...ok...so we should abandon Perth and every other sandy soil region - or just fly all their vegetables and fruit in?

You are aware that applying compost and/or manure to the soil surface is still 'mulching' right?

Nature doesn't need to leave land fallow to allow soil which was good before silly methods are applied to recover - any method which does require such practice, requires it quite simply because it destroys soil fertility - then needs to wait years for nature to fix human error.

And that's a 'good' thing to be encouraged?

I haven't got an hour or two to go into the rest in detail, but you really should read Fukuoka's works and some of the threads here about how regular digging and tilling set back the building of healthy soil and create infertility and imbalance before you set your mind to Soloman's way being better than others.

Good luck to you if you're happy doing things the way you are - growing food organically however you do it is better than not growing food organically at all, but to anyone with Permaculture/Natural Farming experience applied properly, Soloman's methods are poor practice and his reasoning for rejecting all the methods he does are unsound and based on misunderstandings of how they actually work.

[Rev]

G'day Rev, welcome to the forum.

uve been here b4 as fubky fungus, the mushroom guy
but i lost my log in


What gave you the impression they did in the short term? They're for people who wouldn't grow produce otherwise due to the labour or time involved, or for people who want to make a bed where there is NO soil.

what good is a veggie garden that doesnt produce in the short term
esp given the thread topic ' when it counts'
labour and time? gardening with a hoe is EASY, no bending down with all that pesky mulch. all those bales of straw, and all that shovelling of mulch - oh makes my back hurt just thinking about it!
by the time youve sheet mulched - which is equally or more laborious
you might as well have dug it over
if you have no soil - then bring some in. again the same effort to cart all that mulch you might as well bring in soil, or soil components (clay/ sand/ compost) and synthesise it on site
some plants in nature like epiphytes grow in mulch, most prefer real dirt, why deny them what they prefer?


Over time they become much more productive than they are intially. That's just common sense right?

the dug garden gets more productive over time as well. so even stevens there


Encourages food for foragers...brings in no weedseed which will germinate if you turn it occasionally...costs nothing if you scavenge materials ranging from paper and cardboard right through to aluminium foil...smothers weeds and makes any that do germinate easier to pull.

foragers trash your garden (chooks) or mess all over salad greens (ducks) or just eat your veggies (Muscovy, geese, guinea pigs)
and they DO get sick of slaters very fast
all that effort turning dusty mouldy mulch could be reducing with a couple eays minutes with a hoe
no problem with scavenging but it takes a long time to get all you need, and then maintain it. what if you need food asap, and everyone else want that mulch too - as in 'when it counts'
better off to use soil and spend that time hunting manure and fresh forage for your animals than low grade bulk organic matter

theres no persistent weed yet , as solomon mentioned, that i havent conquered with a hoe



And yet Soloman says it's only useful in the tropics...

nope, you got that wrong. its the tropics and climates where the ground both freezes and have a hot enough summer to break it down

my experience has been mainly in drylands and sheet mulch takes YEARS to break down, dries out, is hard to rewet, and when it does it takes the limited water away from the plants and it builds up massive numbers of pests like slaters


you're both wrong I'm afraid. There's plenty of scientific and anecdotal data covering decades which overwhelmingly demonstrates that mulches of many different substances improve crop yields - in all climatic zones.

ill hold this one , follow down to later answer


Ah...ok...so we should abandon Perth and every other sandy soil region - or just fly all their vegetables and fruit in?

in short. yes. Perth is a timebomb, masked by the resource boom
they have long term declining rainfall (30% in the last 30 years), the worst soils in australia ( there and surrounding), theyve been using their groundwater faster than its recharging and contaminating the rest for decades
im from there and i left, and im never going to live there again - its a leaky boat
if you want sustainablility you do not want to be on the Perth sandplain

growing vegetables in WA is much harder than anywhere else ive lived
and with such poor soils they arent going to be as nutrietious so maybe you do want them shipped in from better places like the SW or carnarvon


You are aware that applying compost and/or manure to the soil surface is still 'mulching' right?

ok so now i follow on from the unanswered post.
so you want to define mulch to include compost? that fine
im also using the dust mulch method advocated by solomon
a nice crumbly layer of fresh tilled compost rich topsoil that dries to form a barrier to water loss, and allows easy and direct penetration by rain or irrigation
so i do mulch now by your definition
but i only use mineral or composted mulches in the veggie patch
no undecomposed bulky matter


Nature doesn't need to leave land fallow to allow soil which was good before silly methods are applied to recover - any method which does require such practice, requires it quite simply because it destroys soil fertility - then needs to wait years for nature to fix human error.

yes it does. you just dont see it because of your short human life
ther are large number of species that occup every level of soil succession
we have mostly domesticated the disturbance encouraged species ( livestock and vegetables) and early succession species ( fruit trees)
we are now learning to make forest gardens using climax or late succession species, but that takes time and many are slow to bear or unreliable to bear for the time being

also you confuse soil fertility with nutrient availability
a soil can be infertile but still push up a few good crops after being cleared due to the available pool in the new soil
truly fertile soil is usually from fertile base rocks and has several hundred years of reserves in it if farmed well before it needs a long forest fallow
or indefinitely if you ammend sufficiently with fresh rock dusts and ground minerals


And that's a 'good' thing to be encouraged?

well if you dont want to grow veggies the way they prefer then dont, but you wont get the best from them. If you want the best from the chicken you have to satisfy its needs right?


but you really should read Fukuoka's works
read it. not sufficiently impressed about its broadcsale appliation - or realising the relevance to mulch on vegetable gardens?


and some of the threads here about how regular digging and tilling set back the building of healthy soil and create infertility and imbalance before you set your mind to Soloman's way being better than others.

LOl. the short answer is ive seen MANY permaculture gardens. both ROTE permaculture and real permaculture where people go beyond the books to fathom new ways to explore natural phenomenon
the best veggie gardens ( Geraldton, julie firths place) used trenched manures and compost in herringbone pattern beds, trellis and chicken tractors - no mulch on veggies.
round where i live theres many ROTE permaculture affiocionados who sheet mulch veggie gardens
(no i do LIKE sheet mulch - as i say just not with veg! and not in dry climates)
the proof to me is that my veggies are better than theirs, in vigour, drought hardiness, yield and quality.

i spent taoday building charcoal fires ( ala terra preta nova)to reduce weedy hay mulch and woody debri to charcoal fragments. topdressed 50:50 with finished compost it looks fantastic! i cant wait to turn it in with some added COF


Good luck to you if you're happy doing things the way you are - growing food organically however you do it is better than not growing food organically at all

who said im organic? i use organic principles but ill use anything extra i need. incl glyphosate, broadleaf selective herbicides, superphosphate, ammonium sulphate, urea and sulphate of potash to get things started on poor sites infested with rhizome weeds.
if you do it right then you dont need them after that. legumes supply all the nitrogen, plants the carbon, and you have the luxury of time for the mineral ferts to enter the system - and lets not forget that trusty hoe ;)



Soloman's methods are poor practice and his reasoning for rejecting all the methods he does are unsound and based on misunderstandings of how they actually work.

so you have a pHD in soil science do you. congrats
that must have been years of hard work in a peer reviewed environmnet that actually qualifies you to disqualify others
ill savour your ignomy as i eat my delicious vegetable dinner this evening
harvested from fantastic soil, that was caked grey dust and clay 2 years ago

my closing comment is that if you ed up finding vegetable gardening is hard work for little return , then lose your religion and buy this book
save your precious mulch for the types of plants that actually need it

[Jez]

what good is a veggie garden that doesnt produce in the short term
esp given the thread topic ' when it counts'
labour and time? gardening with a hoe is EASY, no bending down with all that pesky mulch. all those bales of straw, and all that shovelling of mulch - oh makes my back hurt just thinking about it!


I'd say a no-dig garden bed is a heck of a lot better than no garden bed at all. A person looking to build a small vegie patch who is incapable of digging can smother the grass/whatever to form humus in situ, wait 3-6 months then take it from there with a few top layers of rooted hay, compost, manure, bulking matter etc. If you build it right it works ok at first and better with time.

There's plenty of people who aren't physically able to do heavy digging or any digging - a no-dig bed is a fantastic option for them compared to no garden bed at all.

It takes time and patience - if that's not your thing and you want immediate results, don't build a no-dig bed. I struggle to see how you could think you would get immediate 'champion vegie' results from a no-dig bed.




some plants in nature like epiphytes grow in mulch, most prefer real dirt, why deny them what they prefer?


Small wonder you had little success if you were indeed trying to grow vegies in mulch - which you apparently define as coarse, low-nutrient straw or something similar. I don't know where you got your info from, but I've never seen no-dig bed instructions which don't involve bedding the seeds/plants in with compost, manure, plus any available topsoil (or failing that even potting mix) and humus formed from smothering what was growing there, then allowing their roots to extend down into 'real' soil via the humus layer you created to begin with.




foragers trash your garden (chooks)


Only if you let them. Post-crop confined foraging prior to rotation is where chooks are best used.




or mess all over salad greens (ducks)


You really don't have to grow ground level salad greens in your main vegie beds where you allow ducks access, but if you choose to or don't have ducks, there are plenty of organic control measures and repellants for slaters.




and they DO get sick of slaters very fast


Not if they're raised on them.




all that effort turning dusty mouldy mulch could be reducing with a couple eays minutes with a hoe


Turning mulch once every 2-3 weeks at worst is a lot easier than chipping weeds with a hoe every couple of days and constantly killing off the micro-organisms in your soil every time you do it.




no problem with scavenging but it takes a long time to get all you need, and then maintain it. what if you need food asap, and everyone else want that mulch too - as in 'when it counts'


Your argument against bringing in mulch equally applies to manure and compost. If you have room to raise animals and grow their forage for manure, and also compost, you have room to grow mulch. If you don't have that luxury, 9/10 times for most people, a suitable mulch material will be easier and cheaper to source than a lot of manure.




growing vegetables in WA is much harder than anywhere else ive lived
and with such poor soils they arent going to be as nutrietious so maybe you do want them shipped in from better places like the SW or carnarvon


So people there should use oil/gas derivatives to ship their food in, and that is the best way to make Perth sustainable in the long term?




so you want to define mulch to include compost? that fine


It's not a matter of me 'wanting' to define compost and manure used as mulch as actually being mulch, it's established organic terminology in every organic growing and Permaculture book I've read - and FWIW, it's even defined that way in the Oxford dictionary. :lol:




so i do mulch now by your definition


You're the first person I've come across who has a different definition.



but i only use mineral or composted mulches in the veggie patch
no undecomposed bulky matter


I don't know where you got the idea that undecomposed bulky matter is somehow a common mulch and is commonly used on vegie beds. I've never come across a teaching resource which didn't recommend partially broken down 'feeder' mulches.




yes it does. you just dont see it because of your short human life.


That's the only one I reckon I'll need to grow vegies in. :lol:

But seriously, natural disasters aside, where is an example of nature needing to leave fallow ground every handful of years in order to regain its fertility?




also you confuse soil fertility with nutrient availability


They are one and the same in sustainable plant growing. See link below - there are many others.

Soil food web (http://www.energybulletin.net/23428.html)




well if you dont want to grow veggies the way they prefer then dont, but you wont get the best from them.


My wholly organic vegies are fine thanks - and so are those of thousands of people all over the world.



read it. not sufficiently impressed about its broadcsale appliation - or realising the relevance to mulch on vegetable gardens?


Read 'it' - or 'them?'

Fukuoka's land is covered in 'wild', self-sowing vegetables and staple crops. But Soloman's method is better for recreating 'wild' conditions for vegetable growing...by running around for thousands of hours disturbing the soil on an almost daily basis?

The relevance of Fukuoaka to mulch, is that mulch goes some way towards imitation of nature, and allows for as little soil disturbance as possible.




LOl. the short answer is ive seen MANY permaculture gardens.


Apparently no good ones.




who said im organic? i use organic principles but ill use anything extra i need. incl glyphosate, broadleaf selective herbicides, superphosphate, ammonium sulphate, urea and sulphate of potash to get things started on poor sites infested with rhizome weeds.


'Get things started'...and wreck the soil fertility all within a very short cycle. Doesn't that tell you something?

God help us all if Chris sees your post. :shock: :wink: :lol:


But seriously Rev, we're not going to agree on this because neither of us are going to budge from what we believe. I've sent numerous people your way to benefit from your knowledge on 'mushies', I've read your posts at SAB etc and I do respect your opinion, but this is a Permaculture board and the methods you and Soloman endorse are decidedly un-Permaculture IMO.

I wish you well with them though. :thumbright:

[ho-hum]

Somewhere in this thread someone attributes Solomon as saying mulches are only good in the tropics.

I have gardened in the tropics for 25 years now and have found on my soils that it is best to remove the mulches in the wet season and compost them.

Not all and not all of the time but my reasoning is that we have so much rain [1m plus] mostly over a 4 month period I found that unless I had raised beds that the mulches became sodden and anerobic and could kill both plants and worms and probably a lot of the soil biota.

I suppose it is always hard to make generalisations that are applicable to all soil types and circumstance. I have never had too much mulch or compost though, it is always in use doing something.

I have made a couple of no-dig garden beds but probably they were too shallow and this system wasnt really successful for me. It would help if I read Esther Dean's book. I have read a lot of excerpts and quotations and didnt she originally arrive at this principle for people who COULD NOT use a spade/fork etc. Judicious use of a spade might be fine and dandy if you are of a mindset and have the body to do so.

My personal preference is to use a garden fork and use that to lift a forkful to break the soil and let air in. I do not flip or move soils. I then use a 3 prong cultivator to scratch the top. I dont dig where paths are to be. I do not use heavy mulches because of our tropical climate - it is either too wet or too dry. When it gets dry here my homegrown type mulches can shed water if they are too thick. This is ok with trees but not with little plants. I also need to force plants to send roots deep to cope with the seasons.

When I did garden out of the tropics.... EVERYTHING was mulched to huge success because of limited tank water only.

Mulch for me is anything use to shade/shelter plant roots to keep moisture in and weeds back. This includes - stones, rocks, bricks, planks, branches, logs, leaves, weeds, lawn clippings and mowed 'long grass'. Mulches can also be living mulches like lawn or dichondra.

This is vastly different to compost as only a few of those things I use are suitable for the compost heap.

floot