No-Dig Gardening for Beginners: Step-by-Step Guide with Cardboard and Compost

I'm often asked, how do you begin no-dig? What's the starting point? Well, you know, what's the first step? And these are some beds that we created last December or started making, simply by putting a light-excluding mulch. Mulch means any covering material that excludes light, in this case, on top of the weeds, whatever's growing. So it could be a very weedy allotment, it could be your lawn, could be just weeds that happen to be there. And that's where cardboard or other materials come in and the compost. If you didn't have weeds, if your soil is mostly clean, you don't need the cardboard. So you can kind of skip that one step. But I'm assuming most people are starting with weeds and I want to make sure that you know how best to kill them, to not have weeds going forwards, because that will free up so much time. This is the most difficult stage of getting rid of weeds at the beginning. Without digging, though, this is no-dig, not disturbing the soil at all, so it's leaving these weed roots in the ground. And the wonderful thing about this method is that leaving soil undisturbed like that, the weeds actually, in the end, grow less. They kind of give up. Whereas if you try and dig them out and you're feverishly trying to get every last root, they kind of feel battered and bruised and they want to grow again. And the soil itself feels harmed as well. And so it needs to recover. So that's why it's really difficult if you try and dig and why no-dig is so successful at having clean ground. As you can see here, but not entirely, because it was December when these mulches went down on top of weedy pasture. And it's now March 18th. So it's about three months since this happened, winter months. So not much has grown, but the grass is actually starting to grow through in places. And I just want to show you that to illustrate how you need to react. So what we did was we put cardboard where the path is going to be. And in fact, if you look under here, you can see the grass dying. This bit of cardboard actually went on in late January. So about six weeks ago, just we widened the edge. Very important to have an edge. Like if your bed comes just up to say grass and weeds, they'll spread back in. So maintain an edge using cardboard initially. And it can be two, three, four applications. So in time, cardboard breaks down. You never need to take it up because it disappears into the soil. Worms really like it and it degrades. And what happens then is that weeds, as it degrades, you get gaps, holes. And lo and behold, for example, there's a dandelion coming through the cardboard. So, I mean, I could use my trowel to lever out a bit of root there. This is always an option. You won't ever get all root. And obviously this is disturbing the soil a bit. And it's very matted with other roots in there. You know, I think that's a, yeah, actually, that's not too bad. So, you know, that's one option. You can see a bit of grass as well. But the simpler method, oh, now here's one I'll mention too. Bit of burdock. And this is quite a vigorous weed. So it won't hurt just to do that. I'm not getting out the parent root. I'm only removing the top and a bit of root. That will go in the compost heap. But what you can then do is put cardboard on top again. If you've got cardboard like this, this was a box, it's probably best to split it like that. Always making sure that the edges are well lined up as well, like that. If ever you're laying two bits together, make sure they're overlapped. Then you've got a question, how do you keep down this edge? I'll just mention something else here actually, which is a bit of carpet you might have noticed. This is absolutely not obligatory. In some ways, I'm afraid it's a bit misleading. It's just how it happened. We weren't planning to do this video at the time, but this is some wool, in fact, that I was given just to try as a sub mulch, if you like. Generally speaking, I wouldn't use that. And I'd recommend cardboard, just because cardboard is free. A lot of shops and places have bike shops and so on, food boxes that have cardboard. They'll be delighted to give you if you just ask. You just need to take off the tape, remove the staples if there are any, and you're ready to go. Brine cardboard, not shiny. Shiny's not good. It's often got bits of plastic in there and inks and things. So this is ideal. And that's what I would have preferred to use, actually, instead of the wool. But you can see how things are growing through even this wool, that bit of grass that looks like couch grass has grown through the wool. So at this stage, it needs a bit of patrolling. And the wool's breaking, actually, that's interesting. I would always try and tuck in edges or get them underneath some compost like that, just a bit. Because the edge is where you can have problems of weeds growing up where the mulch is thinner. So that's now good, say for another six weeks before this degrades. And if that happened, and there's still weeds growing through, I would put another sheet of cardboard on top. So that could take us to May. And if you had vigorous couch grass, that could even need a fourth application, say in June or July. And I reckon that you've got a good chance after that of not having any couch left at all. If you've been thorough about either remulching it or removing it with a trowel. And that doesn't mean removing the parent root because you can't get that. But what you can remove is, I noticed some here. This is couch grass. For those of you who don't know it, it goes under different names like twitch and quack and maybe crabgrass in the USA. And it has a very, very vigorous creeping root, which is underground. This is not growing in the compost on top, it's growing through. I've only got a little bit there. In fact, that broke off there. But beyond that, there's loads of this wiry white root in the soil. Very difficult to ever dig out. But doing this, it's weakening it. And if you just make sure you keep removing new growth like this that you see, you will tire it out. You know, these roots are not inexhaustible. They have a finite life, believe it or not. And I've seen it here where I moved to this garden seven years ago and there were a lot of weasels and thorough mulching and then subsequent thorough removal of regrowth meant that by the end of the year, the only weed I had left was bindweed. And that took another year after that. So I know all about that process and how long it takes. And I know it's achievable. And I know that you need to be thorough in this initial phase and be persistent. But the beauty of then on your cardboard putting compost, and this is what I'm gonna show you in a minute, actually making a new bed. It means that here, for example, this is some homemade compost. In fact, we're trialing two different ones there. It's the same, everything else, but it's just different compost. You can plant into this at any stage. I actually brought along a little seed potato just to show you. This is perfect time for planting early potatoes. And people often ask, how do you plant a no-dig potato? Because you're not gonna be digging up the ground. But you've got the compost there. I just put my trowel in pretty much as deep as it'll go. That's about 12 centimeter, five inches. And I'll pull the compost towards me and pop the potato in. I just mentioned it's got little, that's called a chit. It's the sprout or shoot where the leaves are gonna be. And the potatoes will form from little stolons that come out of that seed potato. And that's it. That's planting a potato, no-dig. And the potatoes will develop in this compost on top. The roots of the potato plant will go down into the ground below. Potatoes need loose soil to grow in, but they can root into firm soil below. So that's why no-dig potatoes actually work really well. When it comes to harvest, you just get your hands around all the stems and lift them out. Do have a look at the video I made about that and you can actually see it happening. So let's have a look at making a new bed right here. So this is making a brand new bed on weeds, starting steps. Next to it, we actually have a bed that we made last year, which was exactly the same scenario, cardboard compost. Although in this one, we put a little bit of soil at the bottom only because I happen to have a big pile of soil there from some building work. But normally I recommend not using soil because you get much better growth from compost. But if you haven't have a bit of soil lying around, you could use it as base layer, that's possible. So we're doing compost here after the cardboard. So cardboard's going on. These were book boxes actually, so that's why they've got these slits, which is not ideal for stopping the weeds because we want to make sure that there's no light can get in. So actually I switched these two around and that means the slits are kind of covering each other. Zero light going there. And this one's a different pattern of box. So again, that can have nice overlaps, always overlapping. Yeah, so much of the success of this stage will be from being thorough. So don't rush it and just do it nicely. And then compost, what are you going to use? Well, I brought along some options. Just to give you an idea what they look like and the ideal state of decomposition. I know it's not always possible. And often I'm asked, you know, could I use fresh manure at this stage or fresh compost? Well, at a push you can, but generally I wouldn't recommend it. And the results won't be so good. You know, if it was all you had, well, yeah, let's just go for it. But it limits your options with what you can grow subsequently because using nice compost like this, which means it's well broken down, decomposed, you can sow and plant into it straight away. And that's what I want to show you as part of this video. We're going to actually put some compost on the cardboard and then we're going to plant. You can do that. You've got to wait for these weeds to die. Even though the weeds are dying underneath, they're still green, but they can't, well, a few of them will grow through, but mostly they won't because we're going to put a fair amount of compost on. And here are the options. So this is called green waste compost and it comes from people's garden debris, waste, prunings, whatever. And I actually had this delivered a few months ago. So it's really well broken down, but you can see there's quite a bit of wood in there, which is fine. It just means it's not the richest, if you like. And it's not as rich as, say, homemade compost, which is my favorite. I'm looking for here about a good 10 centimeters, four inches. So this is homemade compost and you can see it doesn't look as perfect as the black. And it's also more brown. And that's partly because it's got a bit of wood in. Wood tends to break down in a fungal way and it goes more brown than black. And brown is good. And you can also see it's got bits in, the bits of wood and fibers and things. And we put prunings and all sorts in this heap, but small pieces. So the wood is cut into lengths, nothing enormous. That means it packs down better, makes better compost. And that is all fine. You don't need to sieve it or anything like that. You know, a lot of this is about simplicity, speed, and just getting on with it, basically. This one is mushroom compost. So that, rather confusingly, it's also called spent mushroom compost. People say, well, if it's spent, will it grow vegetables? And the answer is, yeah, it's only spent for mushrooms. It's fantastic for anything else, vegetables, flowers. This method, by the way, works really well for flower beds and borders. And there's some worms in there. That's always a good sign. That's branly worms, not earthworms. They're busy helping it to decompose. And again, you can see it's quite brown. That's fungal, again, mushroom, and well-decomposed. All of those I would call well-decomposed. This one a bit less, but enough. And they're good to go. And I'll show you one more, which is some from a sack. I'm covering as many bases as possible here, just so you can see, you know, what's good. We have actually got quite a lot here, haven't we? It's 18th of March. It's just starting to dry up ahead of summer. This is something else you can do that I think people find puzzling because they've been told that the soil has to be loose for roots to grow in. This, what I'm doing here is not compacting it. This is firming it, and that's a different thing. So firming is good because that means that when your plants make roots, they're going to have anchorage. They're not going to put down roots and then fall over. And it will hold the moisture. And it's also, the thing it's done is reduce the depth. I think we're down to about three or four inches now instead of five or 12 centimeters. And yeah, a sack of this on top will be good. This also illustrates how putting the finer compost on top, this to me looks like well-decomposed green waste. It might have something added. It's called a multi-purpose compost, which means it can be used for potting, for raising plants, as we'll see in a minute. And a whole sack of this on top, which is 40 liters. I think it's 40, yeah, 40 liters. It's also called itself organic. It is certified, so approved. That's a good sign. And you see, I might use a trowel here. My shovel. This is getting it now in a state where it's ready to plant. Now I'm doing all this in a very small scale, just one little bed, and I'm not using wooden sides, as you can see, but you could use wooden sides just at this stage to hold the compost in place. That can make it a lot easier. Because otherwise we've got an edge now and keep getting that maintained, stopping the weeds could be tricky. But I just want, more than anything, this is to illustrate the principle of mulching with cardboard and compost on weeds and planting straight away. With not having a wooden side here, means that any path mulch will come in. But I just want to show you this one quickly, because this is an option for path is wood chip. So very well decomposed. It's about six months old. And six months ago, it looked more like this when it arrived. So this is fresher, one month old wood chip, which you can also use in a path. Not deep, just usually I put them on about three centimeters, one inch. And the other is, it's nice to walk on. I mean, you keep clean boots anyway. Compost doesn't stick to your boots, as you can see. With no dig, it's good. But it's, one thing is feeding the soil life. You know, a lot of this is about organic matter on the surface feeding soil organisms. So they do the digging. Those of you who are used to digging and loosening soil, think of it as your new allies in the soil who you're not harming or hurting in any way, allowing them to breed and proliferate and feeding them. So it's not, compost is not only about feeding plants, it's about feeding soil organisms. And then it all happens quite miraculously, really. I'm always so impressed with how this all just ticks all the boxes, really. And you're keeping carbon in the soil doing this way. You're not, you know, every time you dig or disturb the soil, you're exposing carbon to air. That's carbon dioxide escapes. So it's all staying down there now. Obviously we're adding carbon on top as well. This initial big lump of compost, it's not every year you've got to do it. This is a one-off. You know, how are you going to get hold of that much compost? Yeah, I acknowledge that can be an issue for people. I would say though, it's the one main investment to consider making, and it will repay you many times because you can, for one thing, you can start straight away, like now. We're going to put in some plants. These are plants I've been raising in the greenhouse. If you want to find out more about how that happens, do have a look at a recent video of propagation three. There's quite a few propagation videos. Really good skill to learn about this propagation, raising your own seedlings. It can make such a difference to the success of your gardening. And here I've got examples because I think also just people find it helpful to see the stage at which to plant things. Like for example, that's multi-sown onions. So that's actually spring onions. That's why there's so many. There's as many as eight or nine in that clump, and they're going to go in the ground altogether like that. You could, if the ground was firmer, I've got a wooden dibber as well. You could use that to make a hole. But in this case, because it's composting, even though I've walked on it, you can see it's still pretty soft. Push it in firmly, a little bit deep. There you go. Spring onions planted. And they will all grow as a clump, and you'll come back in about two months, maybe two and a half, and you'll have a bunch of spring onions ready to eat. You could peel out the bigger ones if you want first just to eat as well. Here we have a pea. Well, actually three pea plants. So again, multi-sown. And that means growing them in a clump, they like that. And it saves on propagation space, and you pop them in, you're achieving a lot more quickly. Now, these are not typical spacings here, because I wouldn't normally put a pea next to an onion like this, but I just want to illustrate the principle of how it can work if you were planting peas. I'd normally grow these in a line or two lines, even with sticks between, just for example. But that's planting your pea in the ground. And propagating peas is often more successful than sowing them direct. Why do we bother to propagate them? Why just sow them in the seeds? Well, mice eat them often when they're in the ground. There's quite a few mice running around here. There's rabbits as well, actually. So propagation can be like achieving the difficult bit of getting them through that tender stage when they're so vulnerable. This one is a cabbage. So again, if it was cabbage, same story. You're getting the idea by now, I'm sure, that you just bung them in, make a hole, bung them in, and bury the stem as much as possible. That makes a sturdy plant rather than having one that waves around. Spinach is another one that, well, actually, there's a lettuce as well. That's lettuce, and this is spinach. So again, a little hole. The lettuce, you can see the module is quite a bit smaller. Spinach, also a small module. These were sown about four weeks ago, four weeks old. Four weeks, actually, that's five weeks old, but just roughly a month. And then here's a nice one, which is beetroot. It's often thought that root vegetables can't be transplanted because, well, they're roots and you damage the roots, but it so happens, actually, that beetroot, the bit we want to eat is not the root. The root's there, and the bit we eat is the swelling just above the root, so they transplant really well. And I will just put in three of these, or even two, actually, just to illustrate spacing, because that's one thing I've been a bit random about. These multi-sown beetroot, where you've got three, preferably four in a clump, I give them about 30 centimeter, 12 inches. So something like that to that. And if I was going to plant another one, I would put it there. So that's called planting on the square, where you kind of go like on a triangle. I'd have one there, so, or maybe there, actually, about 12 inches again, and then over here and over here. And if you think that that's four beetroot, that's four beetroot, and that could be another four. Already, that's 12 beetroots in not a lot of space. And all happened very quickly. 10 minutes ago, this was grass and weeds. Now it's a bed growing food already. This is really worth the investment in the compost, because of that incredibly rapid entry point to what you can grow in a pretty small area. And this fertility in this compost will last for many crops to come. Everything I planted here will finish during the summer, even during the early summer, like the spring onions by the early June. Then you can grow something else. You could plant, you could be raising new beetroot plants to put in after the spring onion. You could be raising more lettuce to put in after the peas. You could be raising or sowing carrots after the cabbage. In fact, that's a good point. If you're going to sow carrots here, I would do something like that and put carrot seeds in there, about one every centimeter, two per inch, maybe three. And they will grow. What then, the question is, what happens when they reach the cardboard? What happens when all these roots reach the cardboard? Well, the cardboard is temporary. It's not here for the whole year, in that it's going to decompose. As it decomposes, the weeds will push up. It's a temporary break on regrowth, and it's very valuable for that. Then it decomposes, say within eight, 10 weeks, and then these roots will be able to go into the soil where the weed and grass roots are dying or have died. That soil becomes vacant for them. And some of these weeds will push up through, and that's where you need to keep removing. That's where the trowel is useful. So there is a quick resume of all the things you can do. And I want to just take you up here now and show you the result a few months down the line at some broccoli that we planted last summer. This is some broccoli which we sowed last June, transplanted here in July, and it's been here ever since, being protected from birds, pigeons. They like to eat it by bird netting. So it's quite a few months, actually. It started life as this, so it's just... I'm always looking to encourage people that that amazing transformation from that goes in the ground. They're a little bit bigger than that, but maybe in about a week, these will be ready to go in the ground, as I've been showing you. And then they turn into this. And it is a wonderful thing. So without any disturbance of the soil, no digging or anything, this was broad beans before. They finished during June. We chopped them off at ground level, put them on the compost heap, and plant these without doing any other preparation. Just pop the new planting in. So for the summer to come, we've covered the kind of starting stages, the making a bed and everything. Keep thinking ahead. Good gardening is a lot about being prepared for the next few months as well. Have some plants ready for when the first lot of harvest finish. You wanna keep eating from your lovely beds all year round, ideally. And with a succession of plantings, this is achievable, like this kale in front of me. That went in a little bit before the broccoli. Sown May, planted June. And we were picking from it all through the autumn, little bit in the winter, and now it's starting again. And then it flowers, you can eat that as well. So long period of harvest. These ones, we're just picking these gorgeous heads. And we'll finish this video with a little look at all the amazing produce that you could be having even at this time of year, late winter, early spring. So to finish off, to inspire you, a selection of produce from my no dig garden here at Homeacres. And some of it was harvested a while ago, like that garlic came out of the ground last June. You know, a lot of vegetables you can harvest and then store for a long period. So that's how you can build up a supply which will stand you in good stead at different times of year. And that's just been hanging in the house. That's a good place to keep it. And same with the onions. They were harvested early August, stored indoors. Potatoes, they can just store in a sack in a shed. Fresh lamb's lettuce from the garden just now. This is the broccoli. Parsnips, so they were sown a year ago actually and harvested just recently. Carrots sown in June, harvested just now. So they've been in the ground as well. Savoy cabbage sown in June. So June, June, June, a lot of summer sowing. What I've been saying about keeping sowing all year. On my website, there's a sowing timeline just details it month by month. Leeks, they're sown in April, but you can keep them in pots until you plant them out in the summer sometime. Swede, that's sown in June, transplanted early July. Squashes, sown in April actually and transplanted outside end of May after the frost. So lots of lovely food. And one added bonus that you get from growing food at home is microbes. It's only been discovered recently how valuable soil microbes are to our guts and our whole digestive system and our brain. The gut is intimately linked to the brain. It makes you feel good eating homegrown produce, these microbes. And there's a immunologist quoted just in the newspaper saying exactly that. And you get microbes have a shelf life. Then they don't last for a very long time. So harvesting fresh from the ground, even with a bit of soil on and eating it. You know, a carrot like that you pull out, even if you just wipe it on your trousers and eat it, that's do you a lot of good. And by giving you some ideas for doing all that, I hope you enjoy growing your own. It's fun.