7th March at Homeacres, Somerset, UK. Increasing leaf harvests outside and plenty under cover, we look at some of the compost heaps, spring cabbage, radish rotting (!), my two trial beds, and an abundance of seedlings in the greenhouse.
For a deep description of my approach at this time of year, see my latest website blog, post of early March
00:00 Introduction
00:21 Leaves just harvested from outside – mustards, spinach, salad rocket
00:47 Comparing growth of same plants growing outside and inside the polytunnel
02:12 Demonstration / explanation of picking leaves
02:33 I pull a radish, the first harvest of spring sowing
03:36 Comparing composts on two no dig beds, cow manure and homemade
05:18 Pigeon damage on 8 month old broccoli
05:53 A look at overwintered spinach, decaying outer leaves
06:59 Showing the compost heaps, and I explain the three-bay system for four fills
07:19 Many worms in the compost – the reasons why
08:26 Work with wood chip
09:35 Four rows of parsnips now shooting
10:07 Asparagus bed planted with radish – I show slug damage to leaves
11:00 Overwintered vegetables – spring greens, spring cabbage, broad beans, leeks and kale
12:14 Radish under mesh, better with finer compost
13:47 Dig / no dig comparison – see the difference in the surfaces
15:08 Using a hoe to cut roots of developing weeds, I explain cover crops
16:19 A look in the greenhouse – my hot bed, plants and a compost trial
17:16 Tomato plant (Rosada F1 hybrid), propagated using a side shoot
17:44 Multisown turnip plants in CD60 module trays
18:56 Reason for direct sowing carrots and parsnips
19:11 Interplanting and no dig, continual cropping – lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and garlic
19:35 My Vegetable Garden Calendar 2022 – discounted price!
Filmed by Nicola Smith on my iPhone at Homeacres, Somerset, UK
My Vegetable Gardening Calendar gives you the best sowing dates for each vegetable. There is also a brief vegetable growing summary for every month as well as pages about the benefits of no dig, where to buy seeds and which varieties to sow. Buy now at a discounted price from my website:
Have a look at Module 2 from my online course, Skills for Growing, for detailed information on seeds and seed saving, propagation, multisowing, and transplanting vs. sowing direct.
It is currently half price:
For detailed information on growing any of the vegetables mentioned in this video, please check out my 30 ‘From Seed to Harvest’ online lessons, in which I explain 40 of the most popular vegetables in detail, describing their special needs and qualities so that successful harvests are likely.
Each lesson can be bought individually:
Or all 30 lessons can be purchased as a full course:
My CD60 module trays can be purchased from Containerwise:
(15 and 30 cell trays will soon be available by Thursday 10th March).
Module trays in Europe from Quickcrop Ireland and the Farm Dream
In N America from
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Can someone visit your garden
,😂
Happy to have found through the library your NoDig book, yellow cover. Mighty cool! They're are also a few other books of yours available here in Michigan USA. Very good to read your methods. Great utube videos! Thank you…
What are the dimensions of your polytunnel?
Buy an air rifle, shoot the pigeons and eat them. Delicious and at least you know what your food has been eating!
I loved the idea of direct sowing carrots between lettuce… but I thought lettuce bolted if grown in a greenhouse? Novice gardener BTW 😀
I love the no dig method gardening of yours. I Have a garden bed with a lot roots, how to I break up those roots if implied the no dig medthod? Thank you for the reapond, hope you have a nice day.
I wish I could go from cells to ground. I need to get these babies, up pot then in a bigger one and just then I can plant in the ground as my season is so short. Plus the slug population here is massive and there is a huge chance of the babies being completely gobbled up overnight. I transplant after they are strong enough to survive an attack.
I love your videos and learn so much from everyone of them. I live in the Central Australian desert, food here is very expensive, supply chain issues and catastrophic flooding in many of Australia’s food growing areas has made it even worse. But it’s even worse for remote Aboriginal communities, where a cabbage can cost $30 or more and is stale when the community gets it. I am on a mission to encourage people to grow more food here, as I am very concerned for people already living in poverty.
One of the issues though is not much organic matter to improve soil on a large scale. Another issue is feral animals, camels, donkeys, wild horses, rabbits and goats that are all in huge numbers. Trying to build fences to keep out camels is very expensive and materials are hard to access in remote communities. But despite the challenges I am still going to keep gardening and sharing what I know with others. Thanks for being part of what inspires me with to keep going.
Hello Charles enjoying your video ,when do you start sowing tomatoes , and how many time do you repot them before putting them in your poly tunnels, thank you in advance . Josy
very good and calming videos please never stop making these feel like im actually at your garden more people need to see this get this guy on a tv show!!!!!
Thank you very much.
Do you happen to have a video describing how to sow carrot and parsnip seeds from scratch? My cousin got me a pack of both for my birthday in February and now I want to try growing them! Keep up the good work 👍
lucky you, im in canada and still have 3-4 feet of snow on the ground 🙁
My favourite gardener of all time we have practiced no dig in the UK and are now bringing it to our french farm house 😀 thank you Charles 👍
Charles is a gardening genuis love this guy an his methods
It looks amazing as always, just wondering if you ever have trouble with neighbouring cats leaving there marks in the beds and wether you had a simple solution to prevent them leaving there business there.
Cheers Jan
I CRINGE when i see someone stick a fork into a space full of worms!! Be a bit more sensitive!!!!! They are NOT dirt, those are living beings that can get hurt!
Gotta have that spring dose of “CD no dig” to get the garden engines started!!!! We’ve been building our compost all winter…..
Difference between; soil, dirt and compost?
The thing I find most impressive is that there is a clear order of planting and harvesting and obvious attention to seed selection. My garden is 1/4 the size and at times I'm overwhelmed…not in control!
Hopefully, experience will lead me to the same competence
The Mooli I didn't harvest also rotted overwinter and got eaten by slugs!
Vegetables with tanning lines from mesh covering, sexy.
Thank you for showing your experiments and the things that don’t work out as well as the successes.
Every time I learn new things from Charles
Thank you Charles 👍
And how to live after your videos?
thank you! brocoli leaves are the best, and too hard to find in regular stores, very nutritious
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Olá boa noite
уважаю , очень интересно , занимаюсь тем же самым !
I’m in western Washington state with a similar climate to yours with lots of gray days just now. I’ve put in some seedlings covered with fleece. Is there any benefit to pulling back the fleece on the rare sunny day?
Pidgin are yummy
I love your garden thank you
Sir Dowding, thank you for lowering my blood pressure. Gardener from Vermont, USA
Buenos consejos y se aprende mucho por la forma que trabajas el huerto.Saludos desde Tenerife !!! 🐞🌸👌🏻🥕🥦🥬🫑
I live in an area where the ground can be quite wet for a few days after rains. Would no dig work for me? Would 6 to 8 inches of compost help with the drainage?
Hi Charles! I have a quick question – do you direct sow or module sow winder radish? Also do you multisow? Thanks for all your videos!
First of all I am so happy that I found info about you and your way of gardening and can't thank you enough for sharing all your knowledge with all of us.
For years I've been planting potatoes (some other veggies to) with my father on our land. The issue is that it is 80km out of the city, the soil is extremely rocky, lots of weeds and my father did it all in traditional way. Which led to some serious labor and painful back, not to mention gas and other cost to travel that far. I also have pacemaker and artificial valve and while I can work hard I would rather do it easier if its possible. 😀
Recently I got chance to work piece of land right next to my city and jumped to it. Decided to go for no dig garden. Atm I'm in process of getting everything I need and cleaning and preparing the lot so for this season (spring) I'll probably prepare just one small garden 4mx2m.
Just two question If anyone can help me with I would be very grateful. Firstly I live in Croatia in adriatic region and summers are very hot here so is it needed or good idea to put mulch on top of the compost? And second question I can get california worm humus (from cow manure), I think that should be good as my soil but don't wont to rush into it?
Thanks again for all this wonderful info you are putting out there.
Do you ever prefer sowing some seeds directly in soil/compost outside rather than in module trays, Sir? Just beginning my seeds here in Cheyenne Wyoming, but we will not have solid warm temperatures until the last week of May, maybe even beginning of June. Do you stick to rules about long day, mid day, and short day onions and other plants?
To live your life for a day!
Splendid video Charles, as usual. I really enjoy keeping up with your gardening antics. Such a joy. Thank you so very much. ; )
always happy when a new video of you and your team pops up in my feed! took me a few days to chunk out the 20 min. but it's always worth it spending the time with you 🐥
How lovely to be under glass and micro climate gardening
I'm always slightly shocked when I look at others plots in allotments and see completely empty beds at this time of year. Was lucky enough to start out with gardening by learning from you though so theres plenty on the go! Cant remember last time I bought veg. (Will add that wild garlic always grows in the woods just as I run out of the previous years harvest😉)