Scrapbook image

Your scrapbook

Forgotten your details?

Enter your email address and we'll send your username and password to you

London

  • FairToday
    7°C/20°C
  • Partly CloudyTomorrow
    12°C/22°C
  • See Gardeners'
    7-day forecast

Our Gardeners' 7-day forecast warns you of changing weather conditions (including frost, high wind and drought) and suggests actions to take to protect your plants.

Gardeners' World magazine - 3 issues for £1

Save 25%

Subscribe now

Advertisement

Gardeners World blog

Allotments

Digging and not digging

Posted by: Jane Moore, 01 February 2008, 11.30AM

Digging At this time of year, gardeners and plot holders take advantage of any dry, sunny weather to improve the soil and get their beds ready for planting. My neighbours on the allotment have been doing just that - everywhere I look there are freshly turned plots and beds.

While some of my neighbours have only just started digging their plots, others already have theirs ready. Annoyingly, at the entrance to our allotments is the most pristine and well-managed plot of them all. Every time I drive past it I am reminded of how much work I need to do. (Bizarrely I have never seen the owner of this testament to horticultural virtue.)

I'm not a great digger myself. I used to dig my beds thoroughly, but these days I prefer to simply fork them over. I then add a layer of compost or manure and let nature do all the hard work for me (all the little critters and earthworms draw it into the soil, leaving me to get on with other jobs).

But for some, even forking over the soil can damage its delicate structure. They advocate the no-dig technique in which a thick mulch is applied to the soil surface every year. This could help prevent weed seeds from emerging as it prevents light from reaching them. Now that does sound like a good idea!

Comments

  • Gardening Green-horn

    01 February 2008, 03.08PM

    No-dig saved me a lot of work. Our new property had a jungle and weed borders and being a complete gardening Green-horn i turned to the internet for advice. I found a site advocating No-dig, but with a twist - it suggested placing cardboard on the soil/weed-beds before a deep layer of mulch. As it said that this could be done over the top of weeds, but around plants it seemed like a double bonus so I set too. With flat packed cardboard packaging and the old jungle hacked back and shredded (to reveal another 8 foot of garden!) on top in the autumn, our former weed beds were lovely rich brown and full of worms when i planted up in the spring, and I hardly had to weed all summer! All i need now is more mulch for this year and away we go again.

  • 9iron

    03 February 2008, 12.39AM

    As much as I love the idea of "No Digging" I still get the feeling that the saying "No such thing as a free lunch" comes into play here. I've never met a gardener yet who can produce enough compost from their own garden to mulch all the beds to a satisfactory depth. That means buying mulch/compost which seems a bit counter productive if growing your own is supposed to be a cost saver. For the very elderly or infirmed I do see that it has its advantages but to me nothing beats a good dig. And who knows, I might even find the odd gold bar while I'm hard at it.

  • David

    04 February 2008, 12.28PM

    I am 64 and have a bad back. I have just moved into a new property with a virgin garden nothing but unturned soil. Yes the weeds have all been cleared. As the soil is mainly clay and sloops down to the rear I had intended putting mainly lawn away from the house and beds at the rear and sides. I will also put in raised beds for the good old veg. Right so what is best do I rotovate and mix in drainage materials then compost and finally top soil or what? Please put me right as I keep getting told to just put top soil in and seed.

  • top -up

    09 February 2008, 10.27PM

    cabbage white butterflies.

    I have been told by a few plotters that a good way to keep cabbage white butterflies off brassicas is to spray with a lettuce tea leave the lettuce in water for two to three weeks & spray the tea on the brassicas. Has anyone had success with this method? I think I might have a go this year

  • Fuz the Farmer

    10 February 2008, 10.23AM

    When we first took over our plot October '05 it looked like some sort of terrible scene from a 50's/60's SciFi film. You know the one where the unsuspecting explorers are getting picked off one by one by the plants tendrils.

    So for the first winter I set to digging out the weeds from old carpet, lengths of metal pipe/tubing that had rusted at surface level and were hibernating under ground waiting for an unsuspecting finger or two and miles of those evil white roots that you know will sprout into yet another man-eater as soon as you turn your back.

    Then I boxed out the first half of the plot. The weather had other ideas. It rained and rained and suddenly the plot looked like the Somme, complete with duck boards. We had a shed donated from the other end of the site, much fun being stopped by the new owners as we humped the shed away, oops!

    So come rain or, well, rain actually we struggled with the mud and so we were ready. All the raised beds were sieved and stones etc cast aside.

    By gingo we were ready for the spring sow. The growth and yield was staggering. So I started on the second half, despite the fact that the sun was now making up for time, phew it was hot. The bottom end of our site was blessed with a mature asparagus bed, lucky huh! But the rest of the plot was full of spuds.

    So shirt off I dug out the beds to a depth of 500mm lined them with mulched leaves and sieved everything back in. Back breaking and the cause of much derision by other plot holders, but we couldn't keep up with the produce, welcomed by family, friends, colleagues and the like.

    So last year was light in produce all across the site but after the addition of 3cu metres of the stables' best fallout (sic) in November '07 not a weed in site, yippeeee! And with the advice of Bob Flowerdew and the old fellas (every plot has them) we will only hoe the little green aliens in except for the nasty ones.

    2008 the year of the No-dig. Happy growin'!

  • aletta barrett

    12 February 2008, 05.57PM

    My comment is really not wheather to dig or not, but a question to you expert allotment holders. I cover my allotment for the winter in late autumn with a very large weed-control fleece. This is lovely in the spring as when it's time to dig, I find that there are no weeds to dig or pull out. While this is good for me, my husband on the other hand says that I am depriving the soil of all nutrients and that the worms will not want to churn it up. Someone out there must know. I wait in anticipation!

  • Rachel

    14 February 2008, 08.11PM

    re Cabbage White Butterflies I was told last spring that the best way to deter them is to soak about 30 large rhubarb leaves in water and stale wee (2:1) and leave it to brew for 6 weeks. Then you spray the resulting tea (neat) over both the plants and the soil surrounding them. You can repeat spray after every 8 weeks and there's no nasty chemicals involved. Finally, you hold your nose and pour the sludge on the compost heap. It stinks to high heaven so brew in a bin or bucket with a lid!! My brassicas got eaten by slugs so it didn't deter them but I saw no cabbage whites anywhere nearby (might've been the smell :D).

  • Ron.P.

    16 February 2008, 01.07PM

    Just had my (new to me) allotment rotorvated to a depth of 8-10 inches. Should I compact it down or leave alone?? All help would be appreciated.

  • Cheers

    26 February 2008, 08.06PM

    In reply to Ron.P.Re: your newly rotavated allotment.

    If your soil is very soft, then its probably got air pockets in it, which will need tramping out. As plant roots wont grow so well if there is too muck space around its roots. However, I hope you have dug out the perennial weeds (and every bit of root) before you rotavated it, otherwise one weed root will multiply into hundreds.

  • Grannyanne

    29 March 2008, 07.29PM

    Aletta, the nutrients in the soil come from what you dig in, so your fleece will not deplete the soil. The worms will be perfectly happy doing what worms do, especially if you have added compost. Happy gardening!

  • Psi

    31 March 2008, 12.12PM

    I recommend azadas for digging with. A quick web search will find you a supplier. This tool is excellent, making digging at least twice as easy. And it doesn't make your back ache! We are just about the only country in the world NOT to use these tools, seemingly preferring to suffer with a spade. (An azada is a bit like a spade, but with the blade at 90 degrees to the shaft. The weight of the blade does the work, so you don't have to)

  • Julie E

    10 April 2008, 09.21PM

    No-dig methods are all very well if you have loads of mulching material at your disposal. I have a large compost heap but never enough to spread all over my wide borders and most mulches are so expensive to buy!

  • Grinling

    12 April 2008, 08.22PM

    I need to do a sandy soil raised bed to grow pickling onions. I have clay!! What would I need to mix and how much to create sandy soil.

  • finnymagic

    10 July 2008, 01.23AM

    Help! I am a beginner gardener and want to start growing vegetables. I have quite a large garden and like the neatness of raised beds. Probably sounds a bit stupid, I get how to make the container but what goes underneath? I plan to make the sides out of materials left in the garden, soe brick built and some made from wooden boards and place them on what is at the moment a tired looking lawn area. Do I just place them over what is there and fill up with compost or do I have to prepare this area first. If so why bother with raised beds and why not dig manure in and plant straight into the ground? I live in the Chiltern Hills so the soil drains well and is very chalky. Do I need to place something at the bottom to help it drain further? Any other tips would be gratefully received!

Leave a comment

We'd love you to post a comment, but please be aware of our Code of Conduct.

Please email gwremovalrequests@bbc.co.uk to report any comments you feel are inappropriate. Please detail the post title and the comment you are referring to in your email. We'll take a look, and take appropriate action.

By submitting your contribution to this site, you confirm your acceptance of the website terms.

Thank you for your comment

Thank you for your comments. All comments will be looked at by a moderator, however, due to the numbers of comments we receive, we can't promise that all will be posted on the site.

Advertiser Links

Subscribe to the magazine

October edition of Gardeners' World Magazine

In October...
The October issue is on sale from 30 September. Subscribe today and receive the next three issues of Gardeners' World magazine for just £1.

The UK's number 1 gardening magazine

TV & Radio

Television icon

What's on this week

Find out what gardening programmes are on TV and radio this week. And read more about the Gardeners' World programme.

Offer

Planter

Buy six agapanthus plants for £12.98.

BBC Magazines

© BBC Magazines Ltd. BBC Worldwide Ltd.

The BBC Gardeners' World Magazine word mark and logo are trademarks of BBC Worldwide Ltd.

BBC Magazines is owned by the BBC and our profits are returned to the BBC for the benefit of the licence-fee payer.