Summer 2008 Editorial

I listen to the news less and less these days but when I do I hear article after article talking about or related to nutrition and sustainable development. The latest and most recent concerns the second generation of GM crops which are to be nutritionally enhanced - The GM community is trying to grow food for nutrition!

We are now being asked to consider accepting crops that have been engineered to increase their content of certain nutrients. This, it is argued, will not only tackle degenerative disease but will also be more sustainable. For example, the omega 3 essential fatty acid helps lower cholesterol and ward off heart disease but it's only found in fish. Engineering a plant to contain omega 3 will help reduce the pressure on already dwindling supplies of fish stock and help decrease the incidence of heart disease. Brilliant - it's a convincing argument that's bound to appeal to many. Heart disease is the No I killer in the West.

Another creation is to enhance the level of flavonoids. This covers a range of micro-nutrients called anti-oxidants that are found to occur naturally in many vegetables. Research is currently underway to increase the production of these tiny nutrients in tomatoes. Apparently we now have the creation of a purple tomato. Again, it's another brilliant and clever piece of marketing because it is linked to the second biggest killer in the West - cancer. But will it ever work?

Despite the issues and campaigning against GM crops in Europe the pressure to accept them is relentless. According to the news on Radio 4 there are now 12 million farmers in 23 countries using GM crops. If we do not join in and help develop this new technology, it is argued, we will simply get left behind and become the poorer for it.

I can't believe the timing of me hearing about this latest development.

In a way it's perfect because it coincides with the completion of my final article on nutrition inspired by Sowing the Seed lectures delivered to the Acorn School a year ago. The aim of this was to understand what nutrition is. From the science of nutrition to spiritual science we have considered the different views and followed them through to the quality of food associated with each. In this concluding article I look at the impact our understanding has on the environment and ask which is more likely to be sustainable. This I believe is the only true test of whether our view of nutrition works or not.

To date many of the claims made to support GM crops have been shown to fail. Increased yields and reduction in the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides have not been delivered. Call me sceptical but whilst the aims of GM nutrition appear to be admirable I can't help thinking that what really lies behind it is economics. This connects to the idea of competing against nature which, I have argued, is creating the problems of degenerating health of both humans and the planet in the first place.

We are only a little charity but with big ideas of Moving Beyond Organic where our aim too - is to grow food for nutrition. It's like David and Goliath. In completing this series of articles I feel I have managed to lay down a platform from which to begin our argument that to grow food for nutrition involves learning how to cooperate with nature and with each other.

This has been the most challenging piece of writing I have ever had to do. But now I am done I hope others will help develop it. I have come to realise that because the subject matter includes a spiritual element which involves feelings and emotions the task of putting it into words, for me, is extremely difficult. I am sure others can do much better and 1 welcome your comments and contributions. I also warmly invite you to attend this year's AGM so we may discuss this face to face and transform thinking into action.

Matt Adams

The above is taken from the GGA quarterly News Journal. You can join GGA here

NO DIG GARDENING. HOW TO GET GOING FROM SCRATCH

Let’s get going! How do you start no-dig growing from scratch is the question I'm most often asked (after the one about why no-dig in the first place, see 'To Dig or Not to Dig?', last issue). Apologies to GGA members who've heard this all before - this is for the more recent readers.

The method described here is a permaculture inspired 'sheet mulch' technique, which has worked very effectively on my heavy Cheltenham clay. This method of 'breaking in' weedy or grassed areas, actually creates good soil above the original level, rather like nature does on the forest floor, without any disturbance to the soil. Worms and micro-organisms are left to do their job, to create healthy living soil, and the electro-magnetic fields of the earth are left undisturbed by metal tools. What's more, this is the perfect time to start planning your no-dig beds since you will need time to gather the following unused resources (otherwise considered 'waste' to the system) before you start planting about April.

What you will need is:

1) Thick sheets of cardboard eg. large brown cardboard boxes

2) Enough manure and home grown compost to cover your bed 6"- 8" (Even half rotted manure or really rough compost will do as you're not digging in. Whatever's free or cheap and local!)

3) Enough straw, garden shreddings or lawn mowings to give at least 6" layer.

4) Seed potatoes

5) Long sharp serrated knife (old bread carvers are perfect)

6) Bucket of good compost

Now before you turn the page, this is a lot easier to gather than you think. The amount of large brown cardboard boxes destined for landfill is criminal. Ask at any retailer, especially appliance shops, look out on dustbin day, put the word out to friends and neighbours, and in a few weeks you'll be inundated!

Manure is cheap and plentiful. Riding stables usually let you have it free if you bag it yourself. You'll need about a large bag or barrow load per metre square, so work out your beds first and guesstimate. If you can get compost, so much the better but that is usually in short supply and expensive. I have emptied my half decomposed heaps to make a sheet mulch bed to good end.

Straw is often for sale cheaply - I think the most I've paid is £5.00 for a large bale, but in the spring we're coming to the end of the season. Alternatives are shredding's and grass mowing's, or I even cut the spring couch for hay (don't let it seed though).

Method

Right, so you find all this stuff and select a suitable warm spring day (not too much wind is helpful when manhandling large sheets of cardboard!) and you make a start. First slash or squash down the weeds a bit if very high, and damp down if very dry. Cover the area of your beds (any shape you like, just cut the cardboard to fit with your serrated knife) with a double thickness of card (ie, boxes folded flat) and at least eight inches overlap to stop the light. If starting on lawn, don't remove the turf just lay cardboard on top. Cover this with compost or manure or mixture thereof to about six inches, eight if you have enough.

You then cut a criss-cross through the cardboard and lay a potato on the soil/weeds underneath, surround with a handful of good compost and cover over with the manure. Place potatoes about 18" apart, there's no need for spaces between rows (or even rows) as you will not be mounding up. The closer you space, the less your yield will be but the greater the light exclusion and weed suppression, which is the primary reason for this sheet mulch technique.

After you've sown all your spuds, cover the whole lot with a good clean layer of straw etc to stop summer weeds setting in the manure and to provide another light barrier to protect the potatoes from going green and allow the worms to do their job. You may want to keep adding fresh mulch in the summer I chuck on anything - weeds, kitchen green waste, mowings to ensure no light gets in.

Results

By end of July/August/September according to your potato variety, you can start pulling your spuds -literally. Pull the haulms and you will find the potatoes nestling in the layer of rich compost that has formed from the good nitrogen/carbon mix of the mulch. Amazingly, I have found that any surviving perennial weeds (some will come through the card eventually, try not to worry but pull off any bind weed as it emerges) will have their roots running along this nutrient-rich layer and can easily be pulled up with the spuds. In my experience best results occur if you sheet mulch areas which have been previously covered in carpet for a whole growing season, but this isn't essential.

Your yield may be smaller than normal (not always I've found) but you will have a lovely dark brown veggie bed ready for planting with winter crop seedlings such as brassicas or leeks, or sowing with autumn broad beans or an over-wintering green manure, rather than compacted lawn or weedy scrub. Potatoes are perfect for breaking in new ground in this way as they love the acidy manure and the tubers help the worms break up the soil, but I have also grown jerusalem artichokes, broad beans, and sweetcorn and courgettes in this way. (Tip - very large transplanted plants help deter slugs which prefer the young fresh growth)

by Alison Ensor

Soul Food

The idea of the development of human consciousness being intimately linked with the availability and discovery of certain foods, as described in Wendy E. Cook’s book Foodwise, is a startling concept, but should it really be? Food is energy, and like the exploitation of slave labour that enabled the creation of the colonial empire, or today’s western industrial world based on the equal exploitation of planet resources in the form of fossil fuel, civilisations can rise and fall as a result of the discovery and reliance on food sources. In the book, Wendy Cook quotes Steiner as saying that the growth in potato consumption corresponded with increased ability for abstract thinking, we became quicker in taking up ideas but they didn’t sink in very deeply! This isn’t as dubious as it first sounds if you think of the nutritional content of the humble potato (Irish peasants managed to survive on nothing else for centuries, to their ultimate misfortune) and in light of research linking delinquent behaviour to poor diet. Why shouldn’t it work the other way too?

How I wonder does our current reliance on so few foods play into our human development? Wheat has been a narrowing staple, with only a few varieties supplying a huge proportion of our diet, so that a child going to school with a couple of weetabix inside them, a cheese sandwich in their lunchbox and a bowl of pasta at teatime is considered to be eating a healthy diet. What on earth the vast quantities of corn syrup and oil saturating the American fast food lifestyle, is doing to the human mind, let alone our bodies, is terrifying to think.

Food as in all aspects of human life at the moment – economics, politics, religion - is splitting into two opposing polarities. On one hand there’s ‘unconscious’ food; highly processed, refined wheat and sugar, high meat and dairy, where the consumer is unaware of the origin, oblivious to the farming methods, unconcerned with the nutritional content or even the taste.

On the other hand there’s a growing awareness about food as seen in the organic movement, but which is much more than just that. It’s a conscious choice towards food with integrity, for ‘authentic’ food. True nourishment is food, not only grown without chemicals, but food with ethical significance. The rise of small local producers, farmers markets selling seasonal quality food, even the likes of TV chefs like Rick Stein, Gary Rhodes and Jamie Oliver esteeming regional quality produce (rather than unseasonal and exotic), this is all part of the growing reaction to the unconscious consumption of the average supermarket shopper.

Food integrity has a huge number of connotations. Here’s a few I thought of but I’m sure you can think of more.

• Traceability
• Accountability
• Animal welfare
• Conservation and wildlife
• Diversity, heritage varieties
• Organic standards
• Fairtrade
• Reduced packaging, waste
• Locally produced, seasonal
• Freshness, vitality
• Vitamin and mineral content
• Cultural/regional heritage
• Low energy input
• Vegetarian, vegan, fruiterian ethics
• Minimised pollution
• Unrefined, additive free
• Food with taste!

Together all these things give food a wholesome authenticity. On the other side of the food polarity is an industry growing, producing and marketing a commodity purely for profit, playing on consumer laziness, addiction and advertising vulnerability (our children!) to maximise gain, whilst calling it market choice.

But here’s the crux of the matter. We do have a choice. And people are choosing authentic food in increasing numbers and in so doing they are choosing a better world to live in because of the social, political, economic and environmental implications of all the ethical standpoints listed above.

Growing your own is often cited here as one of the most environmentally sound practices you can do. Think of the knock-on effect it can have on your own life – fresh healthy food, exercise and fresh air, less shop bought produce with all its fossil fuel additional costs (and depressing time spent in trolley wheeling!), the pleasure of giving away surplus to friends and neighbours, those satisfying taste tests, and that fulfilling feeling when you look at your plate and can say “I grew that…and that…and that!”. The world’s a better place already.

And if you can’t grow yourself, local organic box schemes are flourishing, giving the distributors and local organic farmers a living. That’s an economic and environmental bonus over and above your own family’s healthy diet. Then there’s the growth in community allotments, giving disadvantaged people access back to the land and lost skills, and there’s community supported agriculture. In CSA farms, the local community pays up front for a share in the produce and helps out the farmer on a certain number of workdays each year. Like times of old when everyone helped out with the harvest, or came together to put up a barn. Interestingly the United States is the primary CSA farming country. Suddenly true community, sharing and trust are the knock on effects of food with integrity. Earth care, people care, fair share – the three permaculture principles for sustainability.

We are what we eat is a much used adage, but one that is significant on many levels, as the best words of wisdom usually are. I suppose the conclusion to be drawn is that rather than our food sources being a guiding force behind our human development as perhaps in the past, now it is our consciousness that could be directing the food we will be eating in the future. Food will take on another dimension as more and more people wake up. ‘Not costing the earth’ and ‘part of the solution not the problem’ are inspiring phrases to help us get food with integrity firmly in our psyche.

Soul food is food that nourishes more than our bodies. It warms us with cultural identity, with ‘like granny used to make’ comfort, like ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ spiritual connection to something bigger than ourselves that gives life meaning. Soul food will be our future, our children’s future and our planet’s future. Let’s all make Vegetable Soup for the human Soul.

by Alison Ensor

Water, the basis of all life

What is water and what does it do? In its most simple form is a molecule formed from 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 of oxygen. At room temperature it is found in liquid form. It is essential to life. If there is no water on a planet then there will be no life there.

Most school children can tell you all this as it is common knowledge as is the fact that humans are about 80% water.

Water is found in all living things. Life is movement and is epitomised by water in a constant state of motion and transformation. Flowing as water, sap or blood, this life molecule is the creator of the myriad life-forms on this planet.

However water is a much more fascinating substance. As a liquid, the behaviour of water differs from all other fluids. While all fluids become consistently and steadily denser with cooling, water, alone reaches its densest state at a temperature of +4 Celsius. This is the so-called 'anomaly point,' which is decisive in terms of its potency and has a major influence on its quality. Below this temperature it once more expands. This anomalous expansion below +4 C is vital to the survival of fish life, for as the water expands and cools further it eventually crystallises as ice at 0 C, thus providing a floating, insulating sheath, which protects the aquatic life underneath from the harmful effects of severe external cold in winter. Water also has unique qualities of electrical and thermal conductivity which cause it to be supportive of life processes.

In the human body water not only forms the basis of blood but also is the main constituent of lymph which bathes all the cells, and of the inside of cells. Imagine each cell as a water filled balloon with the pressure of the water inside being what gives the cell its shape and form. If one further imagines a larger bag of water filled balloons with water surrounding them one is getting closer to an idea of organs in the body. But what if the balloons start to leak and the water runs away. Unless drastic action is taken the balloons will loose their shape and size (and function). This can happen in the human body but usually when we become dehydrated the body has an emergency tactic to stop water loss. This is to produce a waterproofing barrier around the cells and is called cholesterol!

This substance is usually thought of as being very damaging but it seems that no-one has much thought about why the body makes it in the first place. As an emergency protective layer against dehydration it works well but it is not good to have around long term when it leads to thickening of arteries and blood vessels. The way to combat cholesterol is to rehydrate the body by drinking lots of water so that there is no longer a need to produce it.

The cholesterol waterproofing around cells has other untoward effects besides that on arteries. It also limits the transport in and out of the cells of nutrients and waste products producing stagnation and putrification. At the center of nearly all chronic health problems is a situation of dehydration. Once the flow of water is re-established cells can function once more. So how do we become rehydrated and stay rehydrated? Not by drinking coffee and tea. These fluids do contain water but are diuretics and cause the body to loose water exacerbating the dehydration state. Other fluids like fruit juice and squash are treated like food by the body and do not help to re-hydrate. What is really needed is water - at least 4 pints a day and more in hot weather. Water is a free medicine that can help in the treatment of asthma, arthritis, allergies, hypertension, high cholesterol, ulcers, digestive disorders, obesity, constipation, depression and many more.

Do you drink your 4 pints a day?

Helen Cranston
(Nutritional Therapist)

References:
Your body's many cries for water Dr Batmanghelidj
Living Energies Callum Coats

Spring 2008 Editorial

It has been a busy start to the year already and I hope at some point soon I can slow down but that does not look very likely just yet. As I compile this news journal I realise why it's been so busy -we have been doing such a lot. This issue is packed full of those achievements and I hope, like me. you get a real sense that progress is being made.

In the news section you can find out how well Jane Renton is progressing with the new Sowing the Seed projects working with key stage I and 2 in two primary schools. We have a No-dig compost demonstration garden being developed by our Chairman at Capel Manor, London. For publicity and promotion we have produced a new flyer. a copy of which is printed on the back page, and we have a new look website. It is so nice to be developing some projects and even nicer that its not just me who is working on them! My sincere thanks to all those involved.

It's also nice to have the continual input from our regular article contributors. Alison's 'musings on her plot' is full of fresh ideas as she shares with us her thoughts on the world, as you do when working with the soil. Mike Mason is in search of vegetables that contain the minerals and trace minerals we need for health. He has discovered what he calls the 'fab four' vegetables that we should all consider growing and eating. Of course just any old quality of vegetable won't do. If it's not grown for nutrition it may turn out to be missing some essential nutrients. Staying with the 'fab four' Charles Dowding gives us tips and advice on how best to grow them.

Food quality is the major theme for my ongoing Sowing the Seed story. I am sorry if it seems to go on too long but at these early stages of development I feel it necessary to include so much detail. It's all relevant and I hope you stick with it as we consider the nutritional qualities of chemical. organic and spiritually grown food. We look at the issues that surround each in the hope we may get closer to understanding what nutritious food is or would look like if we tried to quantify it. This, of course, is essential to understand if our aim is to grow food for nutrition. It's such a huge topic but as we look at it holistically and think about all the issues that are involved the meaning behind it will become clearer over time.

Finally, I am pleased, no delighted, to print some letters regarding the last Sowing the Seed article. Stimulating debate is a very healthy and positive way forward. After all Moving Beyond Organic is an unknown quantity so please, lets have more letters. Whatever you think we would love to hear what you think.

CORRECTION
In the Winter 07/08 issue 166.1 said in my editorial that 'as of Jan 08 the new organic standards allowing 0.9% GM contamination will be introduced. I slipped up here. I apologise. It is in fact 2009 when these new standards will come into force.

At a recent conference at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester this topic was debated. The event was organised by Elm Farm Research and was led by producers of organic food (meat, milk, vegetables, etc). Also in attendance were representatives from DEFRA, the Soil Association and other certification bodies.

As new standards were discussed a definite split in opinion was felt. On the one side the certification bodies, academics and politicians argued we should fight the new proposals and make them work for us. On the other side many producers felt it was time to move away from the word organic and come up with something new. I stood up and said my 'two penny worth' about Moving Beyond Organic which got some recognition from the audience.

Outcomes of this conference can be found at www.efrc.com follow links or search for 'ORC Conference proceedings'.

Matt Adams

The above is taken from the GGA quarterly News Journal. You can join GGA here

THE INFLUENCE OF SOIL ORGANIC MATTER AND MYCORRHIZA ON THE MINERAL CONTENT OF FOOD PLANTS

There is now very extensive research indicating the adverse effects on human health of low levels of minerals in food. The decline of minerals in British food has been monitored by M.A.F.F. since 1940. A review from this data has recently been carried out and published (1).

In vegetables only phosphorus has risen since 1940. Six other important elements have fallen, with copper falling as much as 76%. Similarly in fruit, phosphorus is 2% up and the others are down, with iron down 24%. Declines have also been recorded in milk, meat and cheese.

At Eastleigh, over the past 14 years, we have carried out extensive research to increase the plants mineral content by using Mycorrhizal-forming fungi. This group of beneficial root fungi occur naturally in association with 80% of land plants. Mycorrhiza is reduced or eliminated by soil disturbance and destroyed by chemical fertilizer. (2). The reason for such a dramatic loss of nutrition over the past sixty years may be due, in part, to the loss of this important soil micro-organism.

In two of our trials we investigated the mineral content effects of chemical fertilizer or Organic Matter. In the Organic Matter part of these trials we found considerable variation. See graph Below for mineral score.

In order to achieve a simple comparison of plant minerals,

Each mineral was averaged for all samples.

Then the appropriate mineral in each sample was taken as a percentage of the average.

Finally the percentage for each mineral in a sample was averaged to give a mineral score.

Before considering the Eastleigh data, what do other reports tell us? One of the first to add science to organic farming was E.B.Balfour in her book "The Living Soil". One set of data in this book compares the minerals in crops from 3 differently managed farms.

Aggregating 10 minerals in a variety of crops the mineral scores are:-

1. Mixed organic -103

2. Stockless organic -102

3. Mixed, using some chemical fertilizer 94.

The Eastleigh Data

The trial conducted on Eastleigh soil has a neutral to high pH. In this trial broad beans and carrots were grown with and without mycorrhiza and with 3 or 4 levels of mushroom compost. The results are given in the graph below.

These progressive increases in the mineral content of broad beans and onions seem to provide the possibility to go on for ever. There is, however, some unpublished data which indicate that in excess, organic matter can have the opposite effect.

Whilst the results above give encouragement that the Good Gardeners' Association is heading in the right direction there is much more work yet to be done. We hope that in the coming years we will be able to secure significant funding, based on successful trials as above, to carry out further research. Our ultimate goal will be to advise our members accordingly the best way forward for growing more nutritious food whilst at the same time strengthening the organic movement.

John Reeves
(GGA Council Member)

References

(1) Thomas David M.Sc., D.I.C. Mineral Depletion in Food Over the Period 1940-1991. The Nutrition Practitioner. Vol.3. July 2001 pp27-29

(2) Reeves J. Influence of Agriculture on Mineral Nutrition and Health. Eastleigh Research. Lydbrook, Glos.

TO DIG OR NOT TO DIG

The question I ask gardeners when promoting no-dig growing is 'why do we dig?' To loosen the soil for drainage and aeration is the first answer and to get rid of the weeds is the close second. Followed by, to let the frost in, to help get a fine tilth and to dig in organic matter. Many often say because they simply enjoy the exercise and it makes the garden look tidy, and some just look at you as if to say 'well how else do you think things grow?' Certainly according to Alan Titchmarsh and all the other TV experts, digging or ploughing is essential for the health of the soil and the plants that grow in it.

So then I ask, how is it the fertile plains of America that had supported life for thousands of years were transformed to a dustbowl in one generation of farming? To which usually something is muttered about soil exhaustion. And yet in nature, plants have successfully evolved over millions of years in self perpetuating soils. How can this be?

Yes, it is true; most plants require well-drained and aerated soil since they feed via water and air. Compacted soil does not allow a flow of air and water between the soil particles, and makes root growth difficult. So you dig or plough to loosen the soil and bash it about to produce a crumby texture ready for planting. But hold on, what's causing the compaction? Squashing the soil, whether by foot or tractor tyre, is one cause. The biggest compaction however comes from the elements. Heavy rain on bare earth causes saturation and clogging of all the natural aeration channels and air pockets in a 'silting down' effect. Unable to absorb the downpour (a dry sponge can't absorb as much as a damp one), water runs off the top to the nearest low point taking 23 billion tonnes (world wide) of eroded top soil with it each year. The sun comes out, evaporating most of the rain, sticking soil particles together into big lumps and creating deep cracks. Gardeners and farmers look at this rock hard soil with perennial weed roots embedded with dismay and reach for the herbicide and machinery. Or else, they reach for the fertiliser to enrich the washed out earth in areas with sandy thin soil.

So in actual fact exposing the soil actually causes compaction. Nature covers up her soil in an annual mulch of decaying matter and a living shelter of green stuff. A layer of composted material on the surface will absorb 69% of rainfall and expands like a sponge to hold it. The same compost beneath the surface is compressed and cannot swell up to hold the same amount of water.

Natural aeration and drainage channels are protected from flooding with a layer of mulch. The worms and other crawlies can carry on their day and night tilling of the soil. These workers are natures diggers and fertilisers; just look at these interesting 'worm' facts:-

15 tonnes of leaves per acre per year are pulled down by worms in healthy soil

Worm casts contain 5 times more nitrogen, 7 times more phosphate, 11 times more potash, and many more trace elements than the surrounding soil due to the work of their gizzards. (Worms produce fertiliser!)

In good soil and properly fed, worms can produce 10 - 15 tonnes of worm casts per year.

Amazing! So anybody out there still chopping worms with their rotivators? Exposure to light and frosts will drive worms from the surface where most of their 'work' occurs. Also driven down by frost are the bacteria that live in the top four inches of top soil. Vital to the breaking down of organic matter, their work is suspended if they are forced deeper by frost or by soil inversion. Likewise the intricate threads of fungi that penetrate the soil are knocked back every time the soil is disturbed.

I'm sure all GGA readers are aware of the importance of mycorrhiza but for the benefit of recent subscribers here goes. Mycorrhiza are a symbiotic fungi organism that live on plant root hairs. They break down soil molecules into plant food molecules in return for energy supplied by the plant. Without the presence of mycorrhiza plants can't eat properly because they can only absorb water soluble nutrients in the correct format (like us eating calcium carbonate instead of calcium from food sources - totally useless, we weren't designed to eat rock). Plants then become minerally deficient and with their immune systems weakened they become prone to disease. And of course if you haven't guessed, mycorrhiza are killed by exposure to light by tilling and to chemicals.

So where are we? By digging we are hoping to create soft friable well drained soil, full of nutrients, with organic matter dug in. What you are actually doing is destroying the natural eco-system in the soil that is trying to do this for you despite all your well intentioned efforts. Of course many conventional growers do have successful gardens and farms and tilling the soil will produce a flush of fertility due to the nutrients released from decaying micro-organisms. Common sense suggests this is a depleting cycle that will eventually ruin the life of the soil and require the need for continual fertilisation, either by chemical or organic form. Nothing can replace the life-giving qualities of the soil’s eco-system and the natural health of the plants, and those eating the plants, will diminish.

So following the same line of argument, are we creating more weed problems by our efforts to eradicate weeds by digging? Let's look at what nature is trying to do with a bit of bare soil. Newly disturbed ground quickly germinates with seeds blown in or brought to the surface. Fast growing creeping things start spreading; docks and dandelions send tap roots deep to the subsoil to bring nutrients up to the surface. These quick growers, flower and seed in a rapid turn around of maybe six weeks to kick start the race to cover up. Next come the brambles and shrubby trees - elder, alder and hawthorn for instance. These fruiters feed the wildlife and start to build up the fertility big time, mulching the soil and creating 'nursery' woodland. Short-lived trees like larch, hazel and birch arrive and extend the eco-system until eventually a mature forest can appear with the long-lived trees, like oak or beech, finding fertile ground for their slow cycle of seed dispersal (around 50 years maybe from seedling to acorn producer).

This is the force we wage war with every time we expose the soil and try to keep it weed free. For us to live completely within our natural place in this system we should have to become hunter gatherers in that mature forest. Clearly we cannot do this, but we need not do battle with nature in order to live. Respecting and emulating her principles may be to our own advantage too; maybe we'd actually learn something!

So how can we do it? Basically we need to keep the soil continually covered by growing plants or else copy the autumnal principle of mulch, mulch, mulch! If we don't want weeds to creep in we have to give them no bare soil to colonise. Also to minimalise the need to disturb soil by sowing and planting out we should maximise the use of fruiting bushes and trees and perennial plants that can be harvested again and again without digging up the roots. Also we clearly want to avoid compacting the soil by treading on it so most non-diggers use a bed system.

So now we get on to the tricky subject of compost! If any of us could produce enough of the magic stuff to give a permanent two inch layer on our beds we'd be laughing. Personally I can't so I tend to manure every 3 or 4 years and in between I use anything I can get my hands on to mulch - lawn mowings, collected leaves, weeds, shredded garden prunings, comfrey and dandelions grown for mulch, ornamental grasses harvested for straw, other people’s unwanted green waste and mowings. I also use green manure on bare patches in the winter and allow undercrops of weeds beneath tall plants (eg chickweed underneath broad beans, horsetail under sweetcorn).

I compost my kitchen waste with leaves, comfrey, nettles and cardboard but this is never enough so I tend to only use it around the roots of transplanted plants or for sowing seed into. For sowing fine seed I sow into a line of compost and cover the space between rows with mowings (produces lovely stripey beds!) For big seed I lay the seed on the surface and cover with mounds of compost. Bare soil is my guide - if I have a bare patch showing through and a half rotted compost heap I would rather empty the heap.

Here's something to think about though. I've recently read that decaying waste requires quite a bit of nitrogen to break down and therefore by not composting first you may be leaching nitrate out of the soil and inhibiting plant growth. I certainly have found that scraping back unrotted mulch, especially high carbon stuff eg 'woody' things like straw, and sowing directly beneath tends to affect germination. Also I can see how digging in unrotted matter could be harmful (it goes against nature anyway) but leaving it on the surface around well establised deep rooted plants must be a natural process surely? Ensuring the good fine compost goes around the roots and stems of seedlings and thereby mimicking the natural process of seeds germinating in the spring on compost formed over the winter intuitively 'feels' OK to me. Any thoughts?

To me, no-dig gardening is more than just continual mulching! Companion planting, wildlife planting and even moon planting are just as much part of the process of creating and encouraging a natural eco-system to build and interweave a network of support and exchange in your garden. I like to think my efforts to regenerate this on my allotment mean I'm actually slowly becoming part of the system too!

Alison Ensor

References:-
Gardening Without Digging - A Guest
The Lost Science of Organic Cultivation - SA Howard and R Krsna Das