No Dig Abundance in 25m² | Succession Planting, Watering & Fertility in a Small No Dig Garden

Over the past eight weeks, this tiny 25m² garden has produced more than 50 kg (110 lb) of veg—with another 50 kg likely before winter! In this video, I show how no dig, careful succession planting, and simple hand watering have made it possible, even during a dry and sunny summer.

Since late May, the garden has been fully planted for summer, and growth is now incredibly rapid—so long as we can give the plants enough water. In this video, I walk you around my 25 m² no dig garden and explain what’s changed since the last update on 30th May:
👉 Watch the previous video here – https://youtu.be/t_oR4eOZlb8

In those eight weeks, we’ve enjoyed over 50 kg (110 lb) of kitchen-ready vegetables—and there’s likely just as much to come before winter. No dig is key to maintaining this level of output.

Watering is crucial right now, and I share how I manage it with simple hand watering and a magnetic water device (linked below). Staying in tune with your local weather is key to knowing what your plants need. Here’s my rainfall log for the year so far:

March: 5 mm
April: 17 mm
May: 20 mm
June: 40 mm
July: 49 mm
(That’s just one-third of our normal rainfall here in Somerset.)

The best bit about 2025 weather has been and still is a massive increase in sunshine and warmth. I explain how I water in these bright and dry conditions.

I also cover:
Succession planting in a small space
What crops have gone in and come out since late May
Harvests of courgettes, strawberries, broad beans, peas, beetroot, tomatoes, French beans, and basil
Seed-saving tips (flowers and peas)
Autumn planning: sowing spinach under tomatoes
How no dig keeps weeds down and soil life thriving
🧲 The magnetic water device I use is from Abimax and this is an affiliate link, use NODIG at checkout for 10% off::
👉 https://www.abimax.com/pages/garden?ref=CharlesDowding

00:00 Introduction – the weather
01:48 Fewer rules with no dig!
02:06 Courgettes
02:47 Strawberries, Florence variety – covering crowns with compost
04:13 Peas cleared, cucumbers planted – Tanja variety
05:32 Broad beans cleared, carrots sowed – Berlicum variety, protection soon against pests
06:39 Beetroot Robuschka, which followed broad beans
07:24 Succession planting
07:45 Tomatoes transplanted 27th April – Rose Crush and Crimson Crush
08:34 Removing lower leaves and pruning trusses
10:01 French beans sown direct, which followed lettuce
11:03 Watering – which veg and at which stage
11:43 Flowers – marigolds, zinnias, malope – keeping seeds
12:37 Crimson Crush tomatoes – picking at breaking stage
12:59 More tomatoes, planted later
13:23 Basil, which followed sweet peas – saving pea seed
13:59 Tulsi basil, growing between tomatoes
14:28 Tayberry – watering
15:00 Chillies, and a bay bush
15:30 More about the weather – little rain, much sunshine
16:02 Watering by hand – magnetic device on hose
16:21 Plans for planting spinach between tomatoes
17:05 Weeds – pick small!

I use no feeds or fertilisers because soil life is highly active, interacting with plant roots to provide their needs for nutrients and moisture.

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#nodig #smallgarden #successionplanting #CharlesDowding #homegrownvegetables #soilhealth #wateringtips #ukgardening #summerharvest

Small gun, late July. Wow, what a year we’re having here. The weather’s been on our side in southern UK. I’ll say more about the weather in a minute cuz it’s such a governing topic as to how everything grows. Last year it was very wet, cloudy, this was full of slugs here. Cropping was okay though. This year it’s gone next level as long as we can water. So it’s watering by hand. It’s no dig which really helps to conserve the moisture. Hand watering about every 2 days in the really hot weather which we had about 10 12 days ago cuz there are still some tree roots coming in from the neighbor’s garden sucking out the moisture more at the far end. But considering that, I think the work we did in the winter digging out the trench, cutting some of those roots has helped because I’m a bit blown away actually by the the quality of growth as sunlight. Yeah, that’s what we need. And if you are dry at the moment, but you have plenty of sun, I would say rejoice as long as you can get enough water to your roots because sunlight is what powers growth. And for those of you having lot of wet weather, and I’m hearing a lot about that from the States, you know, I really sympathize you and they say, “We’ve got your weather.” Yeah, it’s not fun. Especially if it’s kind of relentless and and lack of sun and then plants don’t thrive. So, this is the opposite. This you can see how much has changed. Check out the last video if you want. It was filmed on the 30th of May. I published it June the 9th small garden series. We’ve done over 20 of these actually since 2017. There’s quite a playlist up there. And I would say in that time my skill has improved in terms of what I can crop when and how to fit it all in and slot things in as and when they come ready. No dig really helps with that because you don’t have to worry about rotation. Well, at least I don’t and it works really well. A lot of things you you actually don’t need to worry about. No dig. The rules kind of I don’t know quite how to put it. They don’t disappear. They’re still guiding principles, but a lot of what you think is probably rules are actually not. So, for example, here three corette plants and last time in late May, they were still under fleece. We actually took it off pretty much at that point and they’ve been cropping now for six weeks and around a kilo of lovely little corettes. We’ve p them small with the flowers even on and I’m selling some of this to a local pub and they really like that. And so you know you got so many options with corettes. If you want more yield and more food, pick them bigger. And we did that this week actually and Cat who cooks for the day is here made delicious corette cakes. So ideas and um just roasted large corette with a bit of oil. The strawberries were flouring and then we had a fantastic pick around 6 kg 13 lb 14 lb of strawberries from this patch here Florence and what I do with the strawberries like over there as well. They were still in leaf and I cut them just at ground level. I put a short up about that and then spread compost on top. And the common question I got from showing that was, “Doesn’t the compost rot the crowns?” You know, everyone’s been told, “Oh, you must make sure the crowns are never buried.” But that’s more about soil. And with compost, it’s it’s very light. And you know, when I talk about putting say an inch of compost on once a year, which is roughly what this ground gets, that’s no dig. It’s really simple. No cultivation, just bit of compost on top. But that inch 2 and 1/2 3 cm very quickly shrinks to half that depth. So if if you do cover crowns, if you put it up close to trees and shrubs and that kind of thing, it’s not going to rot them. I’ve never ever in my life seen that. So that’s one worry less. And you can see how the strawberries are pushing through very happily. And that’s the mulch there is a bit of homemade and mostly mushroom compost, which is one of the composts I buy in. I can make about 60% of the compost I use here. And I’ll buy some other ones. Also, animal manure is really good. I’ve used a bit of cow manure here. Had a few weeds, but it’s been good. And then there were peas on the far end up until about a month ago and they cropped nicely. And then we cut them at the base. Simple crop removal. Don’t worry about the roots. Leave the roots in. Food for microbes. All that stuff went to the composting. Mowed it a bit just to chop it up small. Make better compost. And that’s opened up the space for the cucumber plants. So two cucumber ta it’s a really nice ridge cucumbers. So this is not like the big greenhouse cordon cucumbers different type grows on the ground. No pruning needed. It’s just guiding the stems where you want them really. That’s what I’m doing. They’re trailing. I’ve guided them towards where the peas were and even over the strawberries at least for now until the strawberries really get going. So space is what they loved. And look at this. So I picked them about 3 days ago and that’s what’s grown since then on this plant. Three decent sized cucumbers and with tania those will get a bit bigger. You know, I’ve had them longer than that. The skin is always a little bit spiky. Perhaps a bit off-p putting at first sight, but actually it’s not an issue. And I use a peeler, actually a potato peeler, just to take that off. Uh slice them up thin. Bit of salt. W It’s a feast. It’s a summer delicacy. So already that’s 3 kilos of cucumbers from these two plants here for very little time needed except for picking them. This was broad beans. Uh we had a wonderful harvest of broad beans that I sewed in uh a little bit later than normal. Actually I sewed around early December survived the winter crop early. So that means for us May into very early June at which point I again like the peas cut them at the base even just a bit below ground level for broad beans. can regrow otherwise which actually don’t really want cuz it doesn’t do much from that and that opens up the space again. So I sewed carrots I have to admit more in hope than expectation cuz it was so dry. So I was drawing out drills and watering in the lines of the drill I’d made, not water the whole area initially and drop the seed in close over it. And we did water a bit after about a week and suddenly I saw these carrots coming up about 9 days. So it take a while and you know if you’re doing this you could in warmer climates than this still sew carrots. It’s a little bit risky now here. Well you still could actually but you get small ones. So these were sewn about 10th of June and that should be time. It’s variety. Bericum can make quite big roots for winter. But what about the pest? So fortunately the the rabbits don’t come in here otherwise they would eat these. This is quite sheltered in a way. It’s quite nice. But I will need to cover them against carrot rootly. Trouble is I find in the autumn the covers don’t always do it. Um I’m going to secure the edges maybe a bit more than I have done in the past. The flies maybe wrigle in. That’s the main hazard there. I need to thin them a little bit as well. About an inch apart, couple of centimeters, something like that. The beetroot, they were transplants sewn late May. I think it’s raushka. Really good winter variety. 8 weeks ago. This was broad bean plant. And beetroo have only been in the ground for 6 weeks. There’s beach already. Yeah, they’re tennis ball size. Wow. That’s the beauty of summer planting, succession planting. I know that some of you still struggle with that. I get it. You know, it takes a while to get your head around having plants ready, having seeds ready, understanding when you can put them in. Just do it. Do it more and more and you’ll work out what is good in your climate as well cuz many of you are slightly different to here. Uh but I know very well now the timings that are really good for all these things. Like the earliest I can get the tomatoes in the better. Slight risk late frost. Last frost date here is midmay. We had a frost on the 6th of May. Quite quite a significant one. But I had two layers of fleece over these plants. I gambled and put them in very late April actually as 6 week old plants and this worked. Not only that, but the leaves are so super healthy. Then there’s the question of how many leaves do you take off? This variety is rose crush, the cherry ones, and that one is Crimson Crush, the big ones. So kind of from the same breeding program and they’re looking to get plants that resist blight. So this year with the dry weather we’ve had blight is not an issue. In other years it could be. And removing lower leaves like this is not a crime it might appear because a tall plant like this does most of its work photosynthesis about that much 80% by some studies. So what you’re doing is is just opening up the bottom. You can see the fruit and I’ve been pruning the trusses. In fact, um well, like there actually there’s a truss that was starting to grow a new stem on the end. So, I don’t want to lie that. And also cuz I’ve actually topped the plants. So, now there’s no more new shoot growing. I did that about a week ago. And that’s because in our climate, lovely as the weather is now, it’s only uh 5 weeks until it’s September and 9 weeks till it’s October. And by then it’s so dark uh with 51 latitude is short in the winter that they run out of time. So what I’m doing is shortening these trusses to keep them kind of doable that the plants actually going to be able to succeed all of these little fruits. Cuz if you look at the the ones where I’ve done that down here, you can see it’s still a lot of fruit. Doesn’t look so much when it’s at that stage. And that will mean in the darker days coming that there’s a good chance that these fruit will be able to both grow and ripen. And I know that green tomatoes are nice and you can fry them, but we’ll do that, I’m sure. But basically, I want to get as many red as possible. French beans. This was lettuce. So 12 kilos of lettuce came off that area. since early May from a very early planting. And then these I interseed between. So that’s making holes with a long handle dber. I put two bean seeds in each hole. We’ve thinned to one sometimes. In fact, that’s an example of there’s two plants there and one of them is much weaker than the other one. So this is something you can do. Each seed grows a plant of different strength. So if you sew more seeds, you just have to remember to thin them. So that’ll go on the compost heat. And in fact, especially the ones in the middle cuz French beans can get quite bushy and then it’s quite hard to find the beans. So these I’m looking to keep cropping as well if you give them a bit more space. You can see there’s still quite a bit of space for them to grow. Haven’t crowned them in too much. Uh that’s around about 30 cm or a foot on average dwarf bean. And these will crop I hope until through September. We’ll see later. And these I’m watering the plants that need the most water here. Well, it it’s almost everything. And not so much the carrots at the moment, just enough to keep them growing. Beetroot need more now cuz they’re really swelling their roots. Tomatoes need a lot cuz they’re so big. French beans, yeah, maxing soon because they’re starting to flower and that’s when you really want to pile on the water. Cucumbers, yeah, definitely keep them watered cuz what I noticed with them is on a sunny afternoon here, I look at them and the leaves are wilting. It’s not that the plant’s dying, but the it just can’t photosynthesize because it’s lack of moisture. So, that’s where watering can really increase the output when plants are fruing. And then over here, oh, you see the flowers, by the way, uh they’re loving their sunshine. I’m going to dead head these maragolds, uh as in remove the flowering stalks because after they’ve finished flowering, that will help to keep them flaring. The zenyas I’ve not done anything yet in those terms. They’re much slower to grow and mature. And in fact, near to camera, you can see the beautiful malipe trifida vulcan. It’s a plant I was given quite a few years ago and it overwintered. It doesn’t always do that. So, I kept some seeds. It’s very easy to keep seeds from and I keep seeds of these maragolds as well. So, those are nice options for flowers. And I find that when you keep your own seeds, I notice it particularly with flowers, but also with vegetables, they’re stronger. And those blooms, I’m sure they’re bigger this year. It’s partly the sunshine, but they’re really lovely. The crimson crush, I’ve already picked one or two and I’m picking them at breaking stage. You can see a short I put up about that. It allows the plant more time and energy to grow the other fruits on the plant. And ah, there’s a slight loss of flavor. big debate about that, but I would say not too much actually. Uh, you know, in fact, nobody else notices if I don’t tell them. These tomatoes went in later. They were very small when we were here last. Uh, although sewn at the same time, just showing how if you get plants in at their best time where they’re just outgrowing their pot. These had really outgrown their pot. And I put them in. I thought it cuz actually this was cauliflowers that never made it. And so I wasn’t expecting this space for a while and I just took them out and planted tomatoes with some basil underneath. Basil’s been really good despite being originally overshadowed until only 10 days ago. This was sweet peas for flowers and I waited to remove them until there was some ripe pods on the sweet peas as in the pods had dried. You can do that now for eating peas. Save some seed but you need to let them fully mature on the plant. So the pod will be quite yellow and then inside each one there’s quite dry peas. That’s your seed for next year. So I collected the seed then removed that and that’s opened up the space nicely for these tomatoes and the basil. And behind me here there’s an amazing basil which is Tulsi holy basil. I just smell it from picking it. It’s got an unusual fruity flavor in a way not like a basil. It’s very different to the Genevese. And we put a bit of this in the salad mix. And and many people say, “What is that amazing flavor?” So, I value that. And you can see how nicely it’s growing between the tomatoes. These are not huge plants and they’re put in at quite a wide spacing. Over there is Tabbury. And you might remember last time we’ve had fantastic crops of Tabbury from it. And then the stems that are fruited, you can cut them out and train in the new growth. So, it’s rather like summer raspberries. It’s it’s half raspberry, half blackberry. And mostly they were on the other side, but we’ve got new ones coming on this side as well. And when I remember, I do give that one some water. Actually, soft fruit. If you want, you know, development of new stems for next year’s fruing, now is a good time to water it. And the chili. So, over the years, I found contrary to what I expected, that chilies generally, they’re quite small plants and crop nicely as small plants. So I grow them in these pots like that and that’s against a wall which is more or less south facing. The sun goes off it towards mid-after afternoon but extra warmth that helps them especially at night and different varieties there. It’s a bit of fun. Adam actually sewed those seeds and gave me the plants. Uh there’s a bay bush there. So lots of extras. And just a quick word on the weather. In March we had five mm 1/5if of an inch of rain. April we had 20 and May and June were 20 and 40 and July has been 45 so far. We had one glorious week of gentle rain about a week ago. But the total if you add all those up is only just over 100 mm about 4 in. And the average normally here for that period is uh three times that and also we’ve had the extra sunshine. So it’s a joyous thing you know it’s much better than having surplus rain as long as you can water. And with watering I am doing it by hand. So it’s like one tap hose magnetic device on the hose to run the water through a magnetic field. It means plants hydrate more easily from the same amount of water. Same as us when we drink that water. Do check it out. I’ll put a link. And going forwards, well, we’ll just keep watering. And at the moment, there’s no massive plans for new planting. But one thing I’m going to do is transplant spinach under the tomatoes. And looking forwards, that’s a really good seed to sew in early August up to mid August is spinach. true spinach because when you sew it then it doesn’t flour and it will crop through the autumn, survive the winter usually down to – 10° centigrade, 12 fah and crop again in the spring. So when the tomatoes finished, there’ll already be spinach here. And what I would do is cut out carefully the base of the plant. So the tomato roots are still in the ground. They decompose and the spinach can then regrow. Even in October in this climate, we get some growth on it and really welcome leaves. So that’s no dig helps to make that possible. You probably notice there’s very few weeds. I don’t spend much time weeding here, but if I see a weed cuz I’m here quite a bit, I’ll remove it. Just a habit to get into. Weed small and keep it weed free. You can just have a lot more joy then. You’re not kind of battling things. No dig. You’re not fighting nature. You’re going with it. And and look how the plants respond. [Music]