Learn easy ways to grow food and flowers

Grow with No Dig gardening and Permaculture

No dig gardening and permaculture, are the easiest ways to grow food and flowers. No dig, highly popularised by expert gardeners such as Charles Dowding, shows how easy it can be, to grow a garden. By disturbing the soil as little as possible, we mimic nature’s ability to keep soil healthy. The microbial organisms and networks stay in tact and work together, to create healthier eco systems. The no dig beds, produce less weeds and allow better nutrient retention and water drainage. If you think about it logically, it makes perfect sense. Nature knows what it is doing so let’s not get in the way but work in harmony with it.

Permaculture, works on the same principle, in that we work with nature. It goes one step further in allowing us to design an ecosystem that eventually looks after itself… sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Well, it takes a bit of work in the beginning but once established, you create a healthy food forest, with everything working symbiotically, producing food for years to come.

What is the difference between No Dig and Permaculture

The main difference between no-dig gardening and permaculture is that no-dig gardening refers mainly to kitchen or market gardens. Usually, annual or biennial crops, such as lettuce, broad beans, kale are sown and grown every year. Permaculture tends to focus more on perennial plants and herbs such as fruit and nut trees, asparagus, rosemary (Find more info on annuals, biennials and perennials here).

When you think of a no dig, market garden, things tend to be in straight rows and lines and squares. This is much more efficient for sowing, transplanting and harvesting. Gardeners do interplant things such as onions and lettuce but most varieties tend to be in one area. It’s much more systematic when looking after the needs of similar plants. Pest control, for example, such as netting brassicas to protect from butterflies laying eggs. (I grow plants elsewhere, especially for them).

A permaculture food forest, replicates… well a forest of food! There are layers of canopy and it’s more like circles of different plants, radiating out from central trees (usually nut or fruit or nut and fruit). You work with the land and it’s contours and each tree guild has it’s own eco system that is self sufficient. Each plant works symbiotically with one another; attracting pollinators, repelling pests, drawing and sharing nutrients, from the soil or the air…and once established it is much less work, than that of a market garden. In short, a market garden is for more intense and efficient growing and a food forest is replicating nature.

Can you have a No Dig Garden and Permaculture?

Of course, it isn’t clear cut and you can build permaculture principles into your market garden and vice versa! The three sisters method, is a kind of a mini permaculture system where each plant, helps each other. This is sometimes referred to as a vegetable guild. It’s your garden… do whatever works for you!

The main takeaway, is that we should be working with nature and not against it. It’s a much easier way of gardening and much healthier for you and the ecosystem too. A healthier ecosystem means you can garden organically, without the use of synthetic and toxic pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. The suffix – “cide” means to kill. We don’t want to kill anything. We want to nurture. In turn, it will draw beneficial wildlife to your garden that will help to pollinate crops amongst other things. Of course there will always be “pests” and “weeds” but they will eventually come under control in the natural order of things. You need to trust the process. That doesn’t mean you sit back and do nothing (although you can if you want). You can help things along with natural fertilisers, and home made “pest” repellents etc. All of which don’t harm the environment.

A joy not a chore…

I wish I had discovered no dig and permaculture years ago when I had an allotment plot. I spent my precious time, digging, weeding and mowing grass. It didn’t leave much time for actual growing and tending to crops. Knowing about no dig back then, would have made it a joy, rather than a chore. Thankfully I did discover it and when I really needed to… but that’s a story for another time!

On our plot, Gardd y Pili-pala (The Butterfly Garden), I’ve made a start on my permaculture journey by planting a mixed fruit orchard and underplanting with flowers and fruit bushes. I’ll be adding more such as nut trees, Elder, Rowan and Birch. It’s all in the early stages and looks quite bare with everything so young and spindly, but in my imagination, I can see the abundance and growth that will follow in time… I’m trusting the process!

You can follow the journey here or use the search bar to find relevant posts on market gardening, no dig, permaculture, growing flowers and more. Bookmark this website so you can revisit at any time or follow on Pinterest for the latest updates and inspiration.

My favourite no dig gardening book is this one by Charles Dowding and this is a great permaculture book.

Thanks for reading so far 🙂

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