Can't be bothered about watering or weeding ...

4/11/2020

Experiments and investigations for 2020 ... Mulch or hoe...

There is a lot of advice in internet land about no dig gardening - sounds good to me. It is not how I was taught to garden, but it seems to make sense. I always wondered why we carry away all the leaves in Autumn, rot them down, then bring them back as "good for the soil" leaf mold. My first realisation is that using drag and drop weeding is untidy, so not the best technique for the traditional flower bed. But a possibility for the veg patch / allotment.

This year I will be sharing with you how I get on with being lazy! Assuming I can find time to update this blog.

1 Comment

Alan Clark link

5/10/2020 08:41:30 pm

Hmm... an interesting experiment! I can remember having a teabreak discussion with a very old gardener many years ago who was a "bit of a wag" as the saying goes. "I've never seen God do any digging boy" he said with a wink - "so that means we have to!"

Back in those days, digging marked you out in rather the same way as fighting for Henry V - according to our Will Shakespeare - "he will strip his sleeve and show his scars and say: these wounds I had on Crispin's Day....... gentlemen in England how a bed shall think themselves accurse'd they were not here and hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks that fought with us.........

Digging was MAN'S work and you HAD to do it to be considered manly! Back when I trained, even the most lowly under gardener was expected to be able to dig a piece of ground leaving it level, clean and tidy - no matter what its original state - and you'd be ridiculed if bumps or dips were left.

Leaves and general waste was composted in a separate area, simply because of its good housekeeping attributes - the fact that it removed many bugs and creepy-crawlies was purely incidental. Composting in purpose made heaps became fully incorporated in the "all muck & magic" gardening myth.

Mind you, most people have no idea why things are done the way they are! Much workaday stuff is traditional (my dad did it like that!) and thus very difficult to even comtemplate a change. Gardeners are in their very nature - stick in the muds!

However; it's very easy to see how stripping off the previous growth and burying it became the norm in farming especially after the invention of the turn twist plough - this provided a weed free seedbed for the new crop and aireated the soil, gardening followed on.

Actually, "No Dig" is not quite as labour saving as it sounds but I admit "Less Dig" is not as catchy! These various new methods all employ kinds of mulches and composts added to the growing medium which is usually lightly forked in with small hand tools and not the type pushed in with one's foot. I can't see this working on anything but light soils or beds that have already been thoroughly cultivated and then not to produce root veggies!

Confessions of a lazy gardener

Can't be bothered about watering or weeding ...

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