#nodig Timeline

96d

The raspberry beds have been given a layer of wood chip, the cosmos is still flowering and the green manures are growing nicely. #NoDig #Gardening #Allotment #GrowYourOwn #GreenManure #Mulch

The back third of an allotment plot has two growing beds sown with green manure and two raspberry beds with a wood chip mulch. In the far corner is a blue shed open to the elements with no fitted windows. It is full of allotment paraphernalia that needs sorting out. Compost bays with bamboo canes stacked upright have carrot tubs protected with wire mesh in front. The trees beyond are slowly losing their foliage.

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A framed growing bed is covered with wire mesh to keep the worst of the wildlife out. It needs weeding but the field beans inside are just starting to show. A light pink and a darker pink cosmos are flowering on the outside corner of the bed. The rest of the next growing bed is sown to green manures and the last throes of some french marigolds.

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A curved growing bed protected with some green chain link fence has green manures growing inside with mustard being the dominant plant. There are broad beans, winter peas, vetch and clovers sown here also. The re are frosts forecast over the next week which will knock back most of this growth to enable the beans and peas to come through.

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68d

This is my composting set up over winter. We are fortunate our winters are mild. The piles are unlikely to freeze.

The two palleted compost bays have been freshly turned.

Four compost Daleks contain maturing compost.

Another compost dalek recieves the weekly veg peelings and garden weeds with sawdust added over the top.

After taking the photos all the compost was covered or lids put back on to keep the rain off. #Compost #Composting #NoDig #Mulch #Gardening #Allotment #Solarpunk

Two compost bays are made from five pallets. Two pallets provide the back wall and three pallets at right angles make the left side, right side and centre divide of the two bays. Two piles of compost are dark brown. The left hand pile has three black downpipes down the centre line to allow air flow into the centre of the pile. The right side pile is older compost and is noticeably more broken down.

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25d

Winter veg in the raised bed. I’m grateful for our temperate climate here and the variety of veg we can grow, however slowly.

The bed gets residual heat from the house wall which helps but we’ve only had one week of frosts and a couple of days of snow so far this winter. No nights colder than -5°C.
#GrowYourOwn #HomeGrown #NoDig #Solarpunk

A raised bed along the side of a house. It’s a rectangular box that’s netted with three doorways at regular intervals down the side. The door panels are also all netted. The net keeps out the pigeons and butterflies.

Each doorway opens onto a kneeling space where the entire bed in front and to the sides can be reached and worked without compacting the soil. The design is influenced by keyhole beds in permaculture.

It also means the beds can be worked without ever blocking the access pathway alongside the bed.

There are a lot of veg plants growing in the beds: kale, cabbage, bulls blood beetroot leaves, mooli, komatsuna, garlic chives, spring onions, pak choi, winter spinach, green wave mustard, land cress, Chinese cabbage, ischikrona bunching onions, golden frills mustard, cavolo nero kale, root parsley, Sicilian giant radish, green in snow mustard, Osaka purple mustard, mizuna, mibuna, purslane, winter radish, Japanese wintering onions and chicory. A brindle boxer dog is walking on the path alongside the raised bed with his head down.

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