No-dig and raised beds?

The cucurbits grown in the clay soil with added compost
from our own bins. August 2024

If there is one word that seems to have been adopted universally in the past couple of decades, it is convenience. It seems to me that no one wants to make an effort any more. The pleasure in the getting there seems to have been lost. For me, I really enjoy the process, the planning, the doing, the learning and the sense of achievement when I have got there. It may not go to plan, it may go wrong and sometimes it just does not work out, but I have achieved something - experience.

When I first started growing plants, now over forty years ago, I used to look up to the those 'old-boys' that had been doing it for years. I would listen to what they had to say, evaluate and test the advice given. A lot of it was sound, based on many decades of growing experience. Most, if not all, of that advice is as good today as it was then. Just because someone with a camera and a YouTube account has thousands of followers, does not mean they are right in everything they say and do. It also does not mean they are wrong, but how is the viewer to know, without experience.

In February 2020, when we first got our plot, it had been over thirty years since we had last had a plot on an allotment site. That is not to say we had stopped growing, because we had not. We were still growing at home, in our garden and for some years in the back of the garden, next door. I was expecting to find a lot of 'old boys' with years of experience ready and willing to pass on years of accumulated knowledge. My folly was to forget that four decades had passed and the 'old boys' were long gone. It took me a while to realise that now, in my mid sixties, I was one of those 'old boys' and people started asking me. I found myself passing on some of that accumulated knowledge. However, as far as advice was concerned, I had a competitor in the form of 'vids'. 

I was amazed at how many people were 'educated' in all things gardening by sitting in front of a screen. Basic principles had to be swept aside and new ideas are king. No dig is here. Not only is it here, but it is thought to be the magic answer to easy growing, no effort required - and that word again: convenience. 

Before I say any more, don't take this the wrong way. I am not against new ideas. I am just not too sure about totalitarianism applied to the way a plot is cultivated. No dig and raised beds seem to go hand in hand, and they are two different things that can be used in unison, but are not inseparable. 

Raised beds can describe several things/techniques. forty years ago, I used to run my vegetable plot on a raised bed system. There were no boards or walls, just four-feet wide beds with grass paths either side and a deep cut edge to the bed that was 'raised in the middle giving a good depth of soil that could be cultivated from the paths and dug easily when required. Today a raised bed seems to be bordered with wood and filled with on-site-made or brought-in from outside compost/manure (or even bought-in compost!). More often than not, raised beds are cultivated in the no-dig style with masses of material being added every year. This is piled on to the bed giving a new lot of 'growing medium' into which, the plants are grown. The amount of compost needed to do this, over even a small plot, must be far more than can be got by composting waste material produced, so it has to be supplemented, either in the form of commercial compost or some other supply. Surly the work involved in all this is far more than just digging the plot over once a year? 

With our hands on a plot we got stuck into clearing and planning our first growing year. A walk around the site revealed a landscape we were not at all familiar with. Lots of plots had been divided up into small beds surrounded by paths of wood-chip. Copious amounts of weed suppressant membrane was employed in an attempt to control weeds. This alien landscape was a real shock. I wonder what the old boys would have thought of all this.

I offered to clear a few abandoned plots to make them easier to let, nothing too vigorous, just quick going over with the brush cutter. This will reduce an overgrown plot to a blank canvas in no time. It will not get rid of the weed growth, simply turn it to mush and allow the plot to be seen as a flat area. Two of the plots I had cleaned up were taken by people who both said they "did not do weeds". Really? I thought to myself.

The next thing to happen was both plots were covered with weed suppressant membrane and raised beds were built/placed on top. Into these, commercial compost was used to fill, leaving the membrane underneath. Plants were purchased and planted in the compost along with a few seeds, onion sets etc.

This season, they don't have any weeds in their virgin compost (yet) and they have plants growing away that look good. But what happens next? Throw it all away and start again? I am sure I don't know. What on earth is the point of renting a plot, just to cover it up and grow everything in shop-bought 'multi-purpose compost? Next year they will have all the weeds that have seeded this year and by then, the perennial weeds will have made it through the membrane and started to 'colonise' the bought in compost as well. 

Personally, I think there is merit in some of the new ideas, and this coming season I intend to give some of them a go myself. I am sorry, but you will not convince me that no-dig and no rotation are a good idea when applied to a whole plot. However, some things we have seen, do seem to make sense if applied to a particular crop or location. 

Growing carrots, for example. This year, we decided to just grow what we could in open ground and see what grew and what needed protection. We have had a problem with birds in the past as we had three cats when growing in our London garden. The insects and molluscs seem much worse here. Carrot root fly devastated our crop of late season roots, so something needs to change. Years ago there were chemical controls available to the amateur gardener for lots of pests, now many of these substances have been withdrawn from sale to the public, and rightly so in a lot of cases. Nevertheless, it means that a lot of the pests have had pretty much a free table to feast on. 

Growing long, straight carrots is only possible with a lot of work and dedication to produce a handful of roots for the show bench. Although I have grown long carrots in the past just for the fun of it, I am more interested in growing an eating crop, these days, preferably without feeding the local carrot fly's offspring. 

Here is where I started looking into new fangled ideas for some inspiration, but first it is always my intention to get to know my enemy. So far I have discovered the female carrot fly is attracted to the crop by scent. It is the most active April to May and July to August. The fly is also most active during the day and will usually fly close to the ground. Armed with this information I have several options but my age-old method of sowing them in rows in open ground and then thinning them out is not the best one. Maybe it is time to look at some of the 'new' ideas and making a few changes. I have been thinking, for some time, that the best way forward for me is to work the plot with a combination of my traditional growing methods and to incorporate some of the newer methods I have resisted so far.  

It seems to me that providing a few 'standard' size beds means that I can build some frames covered  with various nets. These can be moved around from one bed to another as the need arises. For the past few years we have established six beds that measure 8ft x 4ft (2440mm x 1220mm). These have been laid out each year using string lines and the paths have been established by treading the soil between them. having no boards defining them means the whole plot can be worked with cultivators and tillers in the early spring and late autumn as required. This method works for us. Like everything I commit to this blog, it is only the way we do it. I will not tell anybody how they should do it, I leave it for people to make their own minds up. If you prefer to do it a different way, who am I to tell you that you are wrong? The last point is one of the things I hate about screen 'vids' so many of them are trying to tell you what you should be doing and why their method is the only correct way to achieve your goal.  

Another thing that has changed is the acceptance of rodents and other vermin on the site. Compost bins that are not turned frequently will invariably make good homes for rats. That is why the old school method of frequent turning is to be encouraged. Not allowing the rats to establish a home should soon deter them from burrowing into the heap or entering from underneath a compost bin that does not have a bottom, or is guarded by being placed on wire mesh.

A no dig raised bed is the perfect home for a colony of rats. No dig means the subsoil is never touched and once the bed is raised as well, there is plenty of room for the rats to move in. So many time over the past few year have I seen people reel back in surprise and horror to discover their easy-life methods have played right into the arms (legs?) of a rapidly expanding rat population with a food supply on the roof!

Our allotment site is made up of a great deal of clay. Clay soil is almost unanimously frowned upon, mainly due to its reputation of being hard to work. I am not denying this can be the case but it can be made easier to work by altering the soil structure. However, some plant thrive on clay soil because of its water retaining qualities and firm grip of the roots. On our plot, we modify the soil to suit the crop we are growing. 

It is all a mater of personal choice, what works for me, may not work for others but only by talking to others and researching other growing methods can we transform our own little slice of the site to provide us with the growing conditions suitable for the plants we raise.

Ralph