Last week we went on an expedition to visit the man who does no digging. Otherwise known as Charles Dowding. He writes books about no dig gardening, and is mildly famous. Perhaps more importantly, he actually does very successful no dig gardening in his garden in Somerset, and very kindly allowed a troop of no less than seventeen Sturts Farm gardeners to inspect his patch last Friday afternoon.
It’s kind of traditional that the garden team and the farm team each do an ‘outing’ at least once a year, to visit other farms or gardens and learn about how they work. We never did one of these outings last year, so this was my first. Duncan and I had both wanted to visit Charles and his garden at Lower Farm for months, and especially with the grand chaos and infinite possibilities of the garden redesign underway, we thought it would be a good time to find out more about his no-dig methods.
It was an hour and half of driving either way, and the journey was almost as entertaining as the garden. Imagine I’m sitting on the back seat of the caravel. On my right is Jane gently snoozing, waking occasionally to make urgent enquiries about the proximity of teabreak. On my left is John, singing songs from the shows under his breath and, from time to time joining the general conversation. The general conversation drifts erratically across topics as varied as silage making, recycling, and what we might have for supper, but the basis of it all is a non-stop audio description of the passing countryside supplied by Neill and Robert sitting up ahead. All the way there and back.
The garden itself was very impressive. Smaller than I’d imagined; less than an acre, on a north facing slope and down a narrow lane twisting and plunging through wooded valleys and farm land. Charles grows mostly salad leaves, as that’s where the money is, but he also had beautiful spinach and parsnips and apple trees and tomatoes and cucumbers and lots more. He literally does no digging, but every autumn spreads a thick layer of well rotted muck or compost on all his beds. The result is a strong, undisturbed soil with plenty of nutrients and very few weeds. Plus, because there is no cultivation needed in the spring, or between crops, Charles can start sowing and planting early, and, for example, plant his cucumbers straight in to the gaps where he’s harvesting early carrots from the polytunnel. The whole garden was immaculate; nowhere did we see a weedy patch or a failed crop or an area that had run away with itself. At the same time it was full of life and diversity, with a band of hedging and wild flowers halfway up, flowers dotted here and there, cordon apple trees between the beds, mesh on the polytunnel door neatly patched up with string, a cat basking in the sunshine.
We saw some simple experiments exploring the differences between a no-dig bed right next to a dug bed growing exactly the same crops, and crops sown on roots days versus ‘nothing’ days growing side by side. We tasted sea kale flowers, and heard about the importance of keeping tunnels and greenhouses well ventilated. We saw the effect of tractors slowly pushing soil down slope in the neighbouring field, admired spectacularly healthy looking crops, asked questions about sowing and harvesting and carried home some delicious bags of salad after handing over a couple of wedges of Sturts Farm cheese.
I think everyone really enjoyed the day, even if some of us were more interested in the picnic lunch than the gardening. Duncan, Caroline and I all came home inspired, and resolved to do no more digging – at least on part of the garden inside this fabled hedge that we’re meant to be planting. For me it was fantastic to be able to see something really working in practice, and to be able to share that experience with pretty much the whole of the rest of the garden team. So next time I’m enthusing about not digging and using more muck and harvesting salad leaves, I’ll hopefully get some spark of recognition from my faithful gardeners…
