After a long wait in a slow spring, plants are not holding back! We’ve been at full speed to keep up and there is much to show you.
The hungry gap ends and we enter a period when new harvests happen.
Currently we are picking spinach, pea shoots, asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce, cabbage, kohlrabi, fennel, small beetroot and carrots just starting. Peas and broad beans very close.
See the results of different mulching methods, for new no dig beds.
Ideas for intersowing and interplanting.
Propagation tips for June.
The joy of no dig and few weeds. An area which was masses of bindweed / convolvulus roots just two years ago.
April tour https://youtu.be/0YXdLR8SB0U
I start slowly, jump to 01.15 for strawberries.
00:00 Introduction, the sun has arrived!
01:09 In the polytunnel – strawberries, lettuce for seed, aubergines and peppers, more lettuce for picking, tomatoes
03:15 Garlic bulb, starting to swell – I explain the stage of readiness
04:20 Cucumbers – reason for removing sideshoots and baby cucumbers
05:15 Basil, and onions for seed
05:44 Garlic scapes, hardneck
06:10 Watermelon and loofa
06:26 Root veg, including Jerusalem artichoke
06:41 Potatoes, dahlia and oca (New Zealand yam)
07:10 Outdoor garlic – problems with rust
08:06 Herb garden – thyme, rosemary, alecost
08:26 The ‘new area’, and how we dealt with the bindweed
09:06 An interplant of spring onions between celeriac
09:13 Courgettes
09:32 2nd polytunnel – doors very rarely closed – aubergines, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and a brief mention of an experiment with magnetic water
10:41 Spinach, cropping well, and thoughts on succession
11:39 Possibility of sowing carrots between recently harvested lettuce
12:01 Beetroots, multisown from homesaved seed, harvesting the smaller ones
13:15 Peas for shoots
13:38 Broad beans for seed
13:54 Two plantings of asparagus – from seed and from crowns, comparison
14:53 Flowers – lupins and alliums
15:44 Rye plants, for making rye sourdough
17:01 Courgettes, kohlrabi and cauliflower
17:41 No dig potatoes
18:15 Squash and sweetcorn growing though black plastic mulch
18:52 The meadow (weedy pasture!), hawthorne in the hedgerow, and wildflowers
20:19 New pond, holding water with liner, with stones from a quarry around the edge, and wildflowers
22:09 Wormery
22:23 Woodchip
22:49 More intercropping of asparagus with spring onion, and spinach
23:35 Newly composted bed, leeks just cleared, and reason for pressing it down by walking on it – firming not compacting!
24:58 Peas, Tall Sugar variety
25:33 Kuri squash, following turnips
25:48 Intersow of parsnips between spring onions
26:15 Early courgettes
26:33 Interplant of leeks between carrots
27:00 Fennel
27:19 Watering
27:47 The dig/no dig trial beds – soil comparison
29:40 Sowings I recommend to make now for succession/follow on plantings
30:38 Interplant of cucumber between fennel and spinach
Filmed 26th May 2023 in Somerset, UK by Nicola Smith.
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#mulching #propagation #growyourownfood
27 Comments
Brilliant, thank you Charles for sharing your absolutely inspiring videos x
I like rye bread , especially with fish fillets. Wish i had room for growing rye 😋
SUBLIME!!!
Charles, i love your creative, sentimental, optimistic soul ❤
Aaaawww that kitty sure loves you ❤️ 😊
Thanks Charles, really love your garden tours, it's good for a gardener's soul.
My Swiss Chard is really looking the best they've ever been, thanks to your encouragement and God's grace.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
Do you have any guides on watering seedlings? You seem to just casually pour water over them and generate quick but strong seedlings that are normally growing significantly faster than mine. I've tried to control the variables (using Pete's Peat free, using CD60s, using fresh quality seed from the likes of Real Seed) to see if I can replicate your growth but still not getting the same effect. My CD60s seem to crust over, preventing proper water absorption, if I counter by watering more often they seem to be drenched. I've considered bottom watering but that's a lot of faffing around with trays.
I’ll never tire of these! Thanks for sharing your work, always an inspiration 💚
Thank you
Do you sell any seeds? I have tried looking on your website and didn’t see any. I do want to order some of your trays also for next year. Was going to order some a couple years ago but I never did due to some health issues with one of my children. I hope I can get the chance to garden on your level one day.
I think the variety of peas is called alderman tall telephone peas. The company is ed Hume seed company. 😊I love these seeds. 💚
Charles I bought and planted Germidour soft neck garlic last Sept, last fortnight they all threw up delicious scapes. Now everything I can find online says they shouldn't and couldn't. Can you help me here? Dug around and the bulbs are purplish just like Germidour. What's going on here? I'd appreciate some help as I can't find anything online.
I heard a verbal typo: at 3:52, you said "10th of July they'll be harvested …" referring to the garlic. But since you said that was in 2 weeks and it's end of May, you obviously meant 10th of June. I just wanted to bring that to people's attention as I know I've watched a number of your videos over and over again when looking for info about certain veggies.
Once again your garden looks spectacular! Your garlic are quite fat, fatter than mine. However, I'm excited to see that mine are actually getting fatter than last year's attempt were. I sowed them earlier (14 Oct vs sometime in Nov the year before), however, since our first snow arrived and stayed on 3 Nov, they may not have had enough time to get prepared for our cold winter (yes, for 'no dig day' I was digging out from the snow). At least it only got down to -40 C/F for a few days, and in the -30's C for 3-4 weeks.
Regarding your back, I've actually been wondering how long before that would happen. There are times I wish I could give you a suggestion on how to lift better to protect your back as I get concerned with your biomechanics. So I may as well try to explain it here:
– to protect the discs in the spine, you want to keep your spine straight instead of curving it to bend over. So arch your back into the natural curve (the opposite direction of how it curves now when you bend … in other words, stick your butt out), hold that position as you bend so the movement of bending is happening in the hips. Your back muscles will still feel it since they're working to keep your back from bending, thus preventing the exceptional forces of pressure on the discs that increase the risk of herniating one or more of them. It will certainly take some time to get used to bending that way. But you'll feel the difference when you do and be able to catch yourself when you don't (I still catch myself not bending properly, then I just reposition myself and bend again).
I hope this helps you and many others. If I ever start a YouTube channel, proper biomechanics is definitely something I'll be covering with whichever activities I do. Would anyone be interested in a channel like that?
no dig garden huh?
what is this video for? i like digging especially if youre in a mud field of dirt, better dig get to the root of human rights abuses, but im just commenting on the use of words by youtube in my reccommends, cool garden however. im just commenting accurately.
Love seeing your progress this year. I having quite a lot of problems with growth on my new allotment – many transplants have pretty much not grown since beeing planted out in April – beetroot, chard, cabbages. Not quite sure why or whether they will grow at any point or should I just get rid of them and start again
Hi Charles. Quick question. Thinking of getting a first polytunnel 12ft wide by 25ft long. We live up in cumbria near Kendal. Do you think side vents are necessary on that size or not worth it? Also, do you go base rail or dig in the side? Thanks, Mark
@6:30 nice little wooden yurt
Very interesting , thanks for sharing!!!!!
Your garden looks incredible Charles! Happy summer! 🤗❤️
Hi Charles, how do you maintain adequate NPK levels in your soil without using fertilizer? I have been reading a lot that compost is usually very low in nitrogen and phosphorous. So how do you add those into your soil? Thanks!
I wonder what the solution for your garlic problem is. Maybe take them indoors-only for a year or two? Rusts have a two-party lifecycle often times. There might be a rust-cycle somewhere on your property that is reinforcing itself. I've had the same issue on my property with an apple tree that I sighted very poorly near a white pine. The cycle was awful and both plants really suffered. Luckily, the white pine was stunted and poorly positioned itself so I just removed it. Let's see if anything improves for me next year
I have fully gone no dig in my vegetable garden now and have noticed such a difference. Less watering and the crops seem much bigger too. Your videos have been very useful in my switch to no dig. Bindweed is now alot less too
What a wonderful inspirational tour.
LOVE IT!
How you dig to this old compost of 2 years ago?
When I annually spread a thin layer (2-3cm) of different compost, in 2 to 3 months it is gone. Seems like the micro organism here are very hungry or what?
Sunny greetings
Woooow Charles! The garden is looking bountiful already! Our beds are still looking quite small, but things are growing (broccoli being the strongest right now). We’ve had heat (24-26C) and totally dry weather for about 3 straight weeks now, but also lots of wind in the afternoon/evenings. Now you’ve obviously sent us your clouds (but not a lot of rain forecasted…). Aaaanyway! We can’t wait to see all your paradise in real life!!! 🫢🫢🥹🥹🥹
Hi Charles loved every minute 👏👏👏👏 thank you lv Irene 😘 xx
Wonderful video. My beetroots won't develop into nice bulbs. Any idea what could be the cause?