Description: "A manual for self-sufficiency"--Lia Leendertz, Gardens Illustrated
No dig organic gardening saves time and work. It requires an annual dressing of compost to help accelerate the improvement in soil structure and leads to higher fertility and less weeds. No dig experts Charles Dowding and Stephanie Hafferty, explain how to set up a no dig garden, including how to:- Make compost and enrich soil
- Learn skills you need to sow and grow annual and perennial veg
- Harvest and prepare food year round
- Make natural cosmetics, cleaning products, and garden preparations The no dig approach works as well in small spaces as in large gardens. The authors' combined experience covers methods of growing, preparing and storing the plants you grow for many uses, and includes recipes and ideas for increasing self-reliance, saving money, living sustainably, and enjoying the pleasure of growing your own food, year-round. An acknowledged expert in no dig and author of a half-dozen books on the subject, Charles' advice is distilled from 35 years of growing vegetables intensively and efficiently. Stephanie, a kitchen gardener, grows in her small, productive home garden and allotment, and creates no dig gardens for restaurants and private estates. She creates delicious seasonal recipes made from the vegetables anyone can grow. She also explains how to use common plants you can grow and forage for to make handmade preparations for the home and garden. Winner of the 2017 Peter Seabrook Practical Book of the Year Award
Brief description:
Charles Dowding develops and explains time- and labour-saving methods of high-yielding nature-friendly gardening. He has written ten books and an annual calendar of sowing dates, runs a YouTube channel with 36 million views, writes for national gardening magazines, and gives talks and courses at home and abroad. He has created three online courses: No Dig Gardening, Course 1; Growing Success Course 2. His third online course appeared in 2021.
He has been growing professionally since 1982, and has been experimenting with No Dig methods for the past 20 years. His current site at Homeacres is well known for its rapid transformation from weedy pasture to beautiful garden in just a half-year (see the video "No Dig Abundance" on Youtube). Currently he crops an intensive 0.35 acres/1300 square metres, and sells £20,000 of harvests--mainly salad leaves--locally.
Review Quotes: "The no-dig method is steadily gaining a devoted following because it is simple, logical and it provides good results with minimal work.... Dowding's new book with Stephanie Hafferty explains the theory and method in detail and with characteristic thoroughness...it goes on to cover every possible aspect of growing, cooking and preserving, combining all of Dowding and Hafferty's knowledge, ideas and recipes. All of these extras combine to make this more of a manual for self-sufficiency than a straight gardening book...a brilliant place for a beginner to start and will also give old timers pause to consider doing things in this alternative way."--Lia Leendertz, Gardens Illustrated
"A treasure of information, it is a complete guide to fertility and healthiness, from soil to body, made clear through real life experience."--Lorenzo Costa, Permaculture magazine