Kitchen Garden Forum

Thank you all for your interesting comments.
This plot of ground i'm going to use has been double dug a couple of times in the past, so it should have a good start.

Hi JB

(BTW, Apologies OH for hijacking the thread, but it is relavent)

We are quite aware of minimum tillage - we have tried it this year on our field - as advised by a agronomist - unfortunately it has had mixed results due to the unseasonably dry spring.

I agree that the method which you describe is probably more environmentally friendly than ploughing and cultivating per se - as long as glyphosate is as relatively benign as we think it is. And probably better than most organic techniques - and as long as no residual herbicides/pesticides/fungicides are subsequently used...... javascript:emoticon(':wink:')
Wink

As you may remember, we are at present slowly transferring the veg growing business from a 1.5 acre rented site to our 12 acre field (3 miles away)which we bought last year.

We are on light sloping land, which is very prone to being washed out if not careful (the farmer next to us had to spend a day with his JCB taking 1' of topsoil off the road which had washed down after sowing grass in october -just before 2 days of heavy rain).


For this reason, (and to avoid lots of cultivations to eradicate couch grass) we decided (with advice)to spray 5 acres with glyphosate, last september, then have it direct drilled in spring with red clover , rye and white clover then rolled. This we did.

Unfortunately the dry hot spring (didn't rain for a month after drilling) really played havoc with the germination and early growth of the drilled seeds. Ribgrass (narrow leaved plantain to gardeners)and buttercup germinated and grew very well, and is the bulk constituent of some parts of the plot! I'm sure it's as good for the ground as rye, but it's very competitive. I wish now that we had ploughed, cultivated and broadcast seed or at least lightly power-harrowed first, as we would probably have had a more consistent take.

Mole

I have since surrounded the 5 acres with deer and rabbit fence and are growing on part of the plot, and intend to re-sow the lower half of it again next spring. Part of it is to be a small orchard planted this winter, and part for trees and shrubs lined out for selling wholesale. The rest is for vegetables.

Dear Mole no need for apologies to me, i'm the worlds worst for hijacking threads, and i must say it's not always relavent either.

Your reply is really interesting, and it's nice to know what other people are up to.

May i just wish you all the very best with your on going venture, and i hope it turns out to be a roaring success.

Hi Mole,
Sounds like a very interest project and rather like me some 30 odd years ago. Sadly I did not have glyphosate and kept pigs for 6 years. Not sure they were such a good idea as the one thing they seem to spread is Couch Grass. Oh they snout out masses but the are such messy eaters that they crunch it all up and next years "crop" seem to go sideways out of their mouths!
We have difficulty with soil erosion in this area because a lot of the land has quite shallow soil over a solid rock substrate. In particular we have one farmer who grows potatoes putting the furrows straight down the hill ans as a result the road south out of here gets several inches of soil.
He has been asked nicely to sow the crop across the slope but retorts that we should keep our beaks out.
He is a tenant farmer and the powers that be have got to the owner and he will have to comply with our wishes from next year. Sadly after the day named 'Deluge Friday' he lost his entire crop of potatoes as the whole lot slipped. We had a deluge of what we all used as early spuds. The local authority are actually taking an action against him as he has been warned many times.
Your quote: I have since surrounded the 5 acres with deer and rabbit fence. All I can say is 'ouch' as I had to do the same all those years ago and I know what it cost then let alone the cost now!
In my first Carrot experiment the ground was dug over in October previous to sowing in late March but the second year I used a bed that was not dug. The first years crop was better but the second years crop was more than acceptable. I feel that there are obviously crops more adaptable to no dig and I feel that it is a case of the grower using a bit of common sense. With the Carrots although they are a root crop simply by running a fork straight into the soil down the row one side the carrots pull very easily and the thinnings simply by pulling on the foliage. I think Potatoes will be the only one where it would be difficult to harvest and also earthing up correctly is essential. If these are grown in strict rotation you can get a minimum of 3 years no-dig in between crops. I now spread my beds with FYM and allow nature to thoroughly saturate it all then cover up with heavy duty black polythene. In spring I uncover and leave until the annual weeds start to emerge then use my rotary hoe over the surface. It is amazing how much of the manure is taken in by worms from October to March. I have now gone over to designated beds, timber edged, but they are not raised beds. Some of the beds are 6ft wide and I have made a scaffold 'thingy' that I can get at the crop for hoeing or any other purpose without walking on the soil. I always used to think the no-dig people were simply a lot of lazy sods but as I have got older (probably not wiser though) I cannot do the energetic things that were possible years ago.
I wish you the best of luck with your new venture.
Regards.
JB.

Thanks JB

I like the methods you describe - we used to do something similar with some of our beds at home - scale forbids this nowadays.

I have fairly liberal views, but part of me would like to see farmers like you describe prosecuted under some sort of soil conservation law. It often surprises me how ignorant of soil conservation some of our 'custodians of the land' can be, and how hostile/suspicious they are of people who attempt to manage land in a way which is different to theirs.

Doing the rabbit/deer fence myself took a while, but even allowing my labour at £12 ph, and paying a farmer to post bash (with tractor mounted thingy),, I saved £1500 over a fencing contractor price

Hi Mole,
When I was fencing I managed to borrow a fencing auger which is only 3" wide and I then knock 4" posts into the ground. They go in very easily with a post rammer (Hand Job) For gate posts 8" and strainer posts 6" I dig out and use concrete to secure. I use a dry mix and allow the moisture present to set it all off. I use three strands of high tensile wire and first put pig/sheep netting fastened to the wire with circular clips then I put the rabbit fencing the bottom buried splayed out 6"
in a trench and refilled. The deer Fencing is then added as an extension of the existing fencing and is again three strands of ht wire with stainless steel discs arranged spasmodically down the fencing.
The local forestry were having difficulty with deer on the local trunk road and too many accidents and they now have these discs on the trees bordering the road and the deer simple will not pass them. These discs are just like CD's and they would do the job admirably sadly CD's were not invented when I did my fence and the stainless discs cost me quite a bit but they have been very affective over the last 30 years that the fence has been in operation. This year the fence was damaged and I didn't realise it and the next thing is that I had 6 deer on the plot.
They are not easy to get rid of because if you panic them they can do a hell of a lot of damage. I actually opened all the gates and left them to it but not before I had two in one of the tunnels fortunately they were Does and no antlers!!
They grazed most of the morning but had all found their way out by dusk. My fencing is 2320 ft long approx and I cannot remember how much it cost but it was over a £1000 for materials which was a hell of a lot of money then. I didn't count my labour in which I suppose I should have.
I suspect that the farmer mentioned earlier will actually give up in the end because he seems to make a pigs ear of most things and when you make keep making pigs ears you are hitting your pocket all the time and eventually he will go broke.
He will be prosecuted but I do nor know actually what the charges are going to be. If they make the fine hefty enough he probably will not be able to pay them and that would be an end to it all.
JB.

I'm a bit late joining in here but I just dug over a 'no digging no treading' bit of my plot the other day and was glad I had. Things had not prospered in this patch and it was easy to see why. Compacted - well dead lumpy anyway - and a mysterious mould which appeared to have emanated from a cane wigwam. The bed was desperate for a dig, so I dug. Must confess I actually really enjoy digging, couldn't bear to give it up, I just love the therapy of a monotonous task which clears your head and I love the look of the ground when I've finished, it almost seems a shame to spoil it with planting. It's taken me years to get that sod-by-sod effect the old boys on the allotments always produce and I can't help being a teeny bit proud when I've turned a nice fat patch. Daft isn't it?

Dear Giulia, thanks for your reply, better late than never.

I too love digging, but i'm just trying to plan for the latter years of my life.

I've sorted that one - got my cousin to breed me an enthusiastic nephew - he's 6'3" so good for mending greenhosue roof panes too.

OH What are you on about latter years I thought you were a young spring chicken.

Bren

Dear Bren, you never can beat a little foreward planning.