No Dig Vegetable Garden
People joke about ‘do nothing gardening’, but there is more to no dig beds than that. The idea is to allow nature to do what it does best, just help her along a bit.
Digging in to soil can destroy its fragile structure over time, as well as involving a lot of needless work. With a ‘no dig’ garden, instead of working compost and mulch into the bed you pile it on top, encouraging the worms to do the job for you. The undisturbed earth retains moisture more effectively and is disease resistant.
There’s still work to be done, every autumn you need to spread a good layer of compost on top to give the worms something to get their teeth into, so to speak. And there’s another bonus to all this, by disturbing the soil less, fewer weeds grow.
We have several raised beds in our organic vegetable patch at Kilver Court. We always have a bed growing our renowned Sharpham Park spelt and one with ‘Martock beans’ grown from a handful donated by Penelope Hobhouse, as well as rotating herbs and wild strawberries. They are intended as an educational resource for local schoolchildren.
Through the willow archway one part of the garden has been given to the Somerset Wildlife Trust as a space to grow plants native to Somerset.
Digging in to soil can destroy its fragile structure over time, as well as involving a lot of needless work. With a ‘no dig’ garden, instead of working compost and mulch into the bed you pile it on top, encouraging the worms to do the job for you. The undisturbed earth retains moisture more effectively and is disease resistant.
There’s still work to be done, every autumn you need to spread a good layer of compost on top to give the worms something to get their teeth into, so to speak. And there’s another bonus to all this, by disturbing the soil less, fewer weeds grow. We have several raised beds in our organic vegetable patch at Kilver Court. We always have a bed growing our renowned Sharpham Park spelt and one with ‘Martock beans’ grown from a handful donated by Penelope Hobhouse, as well as rotating herbs and wild strawberries. They are intended as an educational resource for local schoolchildren.
Through the willow archway one part of the garden has been given to the Somerset Wildlife Trust as a space to grow plants native to Somerset.
