Perfect gardening weather chez Damson Cottage today - warm, bit of sun, bit of cloud, no wind - so himself Lord Malarkey and I started the Grand Plan to transform the vegetable garden from current embryonic Raised Bed status to future No Dig glory. Here’s the before photos (because I was on the ball enough to think I ought to record our progress for the purpose of future gloating amongst our abundant vegetable production!) :
The square raised bed will remain - it contains my new rhubarb which is growing nicely and I do not want it disturbed. It will also provide a resting place for my tush when gardening. We decided to start dismantling the beds to the left of the photos because a) they have already been growing veg and b) they are in the central area of the top garden and the plan is to spread outwards from them depending on sun and shadow patterns from the surrounding trees.
The rest of the parsnips had to be excavated. We’ve been pulling parsnips since the second week in December, so successful cropping there. Here’s the last of them:
I think some of them would have swelled even more if they’d been left. They haven’t gone woody at all. They will do well for Easter Lunch on Sunday and for a week or two after. Edith and Sidney will have the green tops. Here is Sidney, sunbathing. Edith was too busy digging her tunnel to appear in the photo:
Anyway, after a morning of dismantling planks, mowing the grass to within an inch of its life, and spreading cardboard and compost, this is the state of play thus far where three beds became one:
The purple sprouting broccoli is still cropping well, growing through the grass mulch that Andy planted them in last year, which was him basically doing no dig without knowing it! So, the piece of ground in front of the broccoli has been laid with cardboard and more grass cuttings on top. I’m going to sow beans and courgettes this coming week in the greenhouse and by the time they are ready to plant out, the compost in Bin 2 will be ready to spread on top of the grass cuttings. And the beans and courgettes can go straight into that! I can’t empty Compost Bin 2 yet because Mollie Bantam has decided it is the perfect place to lay her next clutch of eggs. Once she’s gone broody, I can remove her eggs and get at the compost underneath. Honestly, these bantams are the bane of my gardening life at the moment.
We need to fence off this area now in defence against the Bantam Four, and as soon as that is done I shall plant out my peas and sow a row of carrots and a row of parsnips. I have 100 metres of fleece ready as defence against late frosts and am now of a mission to track down more cardboard so we can gradually expand the growing area.
I reckon by doing what we’ve done this morning we’ve already doubled our growing area AND got rid of areas of grass that would otherwise need constant mowing. Thus far, I am feeling dead chuffed with this no dig malarkey!
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