Cardboard as weed suppressant over winter?

[plotman]

I can fully understand fellow allotmenteers who unfortunately may suffer from ill health and struggle with the physical side of gardening, And for them is good there are alternative methods where they can still gain some results. Its a shame that there nieghbours cant offer to help out with a bit of digging.
But i am amazed by the humourous comments by others to try and justify a no dig, no weeding, no effort way of gardening. I heard RAIN is bad for soil lol, Cardboard keeps worms warm ha ha (thats my favourite) Digging is bad for your back, Well yes if your unfit, obese or go out it at a bull at a gate lol.
I just find cardboard blowing around the site, Dirty carpets draped over vast areas turning the soil sour with chemicals, Old pallets scattered around an incredibly anti social eyesore. So why not use 2014 to get yourself fit, Alittle at a time, Improve your health, Sweeten the soil with rain that can penetrate and air to let roots breath, and spend the summer looking at beautiful green crops rather than a a skip full of rubbish scattered around. And help each other. Ha ha, As if thats likely all to happen )

[Bigmallly]

Digging is bad for your back, Well yes if your unfit, obese or go out it at a bull at a gate lol. So why not use 2014 to get yourself fit

I'm not sure if you are deliberately setting out to wind folks up but I'm sure you are doing a very good job. I am neither Obese, Unfit or go at it like a bull at a gate. I don't need to justify myself to you or anyone else as to why I work certain ways but for the record, my back problem was due to an injury at work many years ago whilst trying to help someone less fortunate than myself. An Ambulance trolley collapsed whilst moving a patient & instinctively I tried to stop it. Please get your facts right before making assumptions.

[scarey55]

I don't know if anyone is deliberately on a wind up or not but everyone has their own ways of gardening and that is fine but there probably is no need to tell anyone else that they are wrong/silly for doing what they do. I don't think anyone has to justify anything, if it works for them, then it is fine.
As you say, Plotman, it is a shame that we can't help each other out with the digging but, sadly everyone's lives are busy these days and we are all just trying to do what's best.
Let's try and keep this thread open for the sake of the OP because, if it degenerates any more, I fear that it may be closed.

[Bill HH]

Each to his own and may it always be that way, there are pro's and cons for both. I don't think plotman is trying to wind anyone up, his views are sincere and widely held. He did say that people with injuries might find no digging a useful method. If I could I would do it to. It is very satisfying to look back at a plot well dug.It can also be annoying to get a damp page 3 of the sun blown in your face from next doors plot. However I manage to do it without making a mess and it does work. There is no reason that you cant weigh cardboard or paper down with a little soil or stones.

[Two_Sheds]

£500-00 of veg a year. Only equates to £1-50 a day

actually it equates to being almost totally self-sufficient in food. Rather than spend a fiver on lunch, I take a lotty pack-up lunch. I don't spend another fiver on wine/beer, dinner & snack foods: again, I grow my own. That's a £10 saving a day, £3,650 every year.

I only have to buy rice, cheese, porridge (or Belv1ta) & olive oil. I grow my own lunches, dinners, wine & chutneys/jams

But i am amazed by the humourous comments by others to try and justify a no dig, no weeding, no effort way of gardening.... I heard RAIN is bad for soil lol, Cardboard keeps worms warm ha ha (thats my favourite) Digging is bad for your back, Well yes if your unfit, obese

You could make your points without laughing at other posters
...and also uninformed. Rather than laughing, you could try reading serious books about alternative (to you) methods of growing crops.

worms and cardboard ~ the card isn't there to keep the worms warm & cosy, it's a mulch, an organic one which also diverts a waste product out of landfill and into something beneficial (carbon for the soil). You'll find underneath any mulch lots of worm activity, as they pull rotting surface matter down into their tunnels. This is how worms feed: they don't feed on stuff that's been "dug in".

I just find cardboard blowing around the site, Dirty carpets ... Old pallets ...an incredibly anti social eyesore.

I think we all agree on that one. On my site anyway it's the old-timers who have all the junk on their plots. And carpets are banned.

And help each other. Ha ha, As if thats likely all to happen

That's what this whole site is for: helping each other. It's why I post, it's why 95% of us post. We try to do it without ridiculing other posters, even if we disagree with their points of view.

I am neither Obese, Unfit or go at it like a bull at a gate. ... my back problem was due to an injury at work

... and mine is due to a radical neck dissection & subsequent paralysis, when I was 25. Since then my left arm hasn't worked.

people with injuries might find no digging a useful method.

That's only one reason for no-dig. Actually our soil is dug, but it's dug by worms, which also aerate the soil: "One acre of worms can break up about 50 tonnes of soil". source.
Spade digging destroys worm tunnels, and rotavators kill worms. Digging puts surface organic material deeper in the soil, where there is less oxygen to support the decomposition to plant-available nutrients. Really, mulches are much better than digging. Digging is just a habit that Westerners have practised without thinking much about what it does to soil life. Soil used to be thought of as "dirt", but we now know it's far more complex than that, it's in fact a whole ecosystem of symbiotic relationships between soil-living organisms.

No dig isn't a modern trendy fad: it has been extremely successful for, amongst others, Charles Dowding, in particular: "growing acclaimed vegetables without soil tillage for thirty years"

Doves Farm's (the flour people) beds are in their fifteenth year of No Dig. They would have given up if it didn't work.

also Masanobu Fukuoka who did not plow his fields for more than 30 years: Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/masanobu-fukuoka-zmaz82jazgoe.aspx#ixzz2pcNWrTd6 ,

Sepp Holzer, Ruth Stout in the '60s, F. C. King, Head Gardener at Levens Hall who wrote the book "Is Digging Necessary?" in 1946.



A qwik explanation of no-dig

[Mikey]

I heard RAIN is bad for soil lol, Sweeten the soil with rain

I'd have to disagree with you Plotman, rainwater is good for your plants but it is not good for your soil. The water leeches out the nutrients that your plants need for health which is why traditional gardeners add nutrients back in such as fish blood and bone, bonemeal, hoof and horn, chicken pellets to name but a few.

I used to be very much like you, I'd dig over my plot in autumn and leave it up in big clods so that the rain and frost could break it down for me and the rains could remove all the goodness as well. The soil is a microclimate in its own right and every time we dig it over we destroy some of it. I still have areas I dig, and I still hoe off weeds. However last year I built some raised beds over upended grass covered this will a thick layer of cardboard and covered this with a good 18" of compost. I had by far the best harvest I've ever had from these beds and they were far better than my turned and frost broken beds. They had less disease better roots and higher yields.

I can't argue with it, I'm nowhere near as fanatical as Two Sheds, I don't go collecting leaves and I do use horsemuck. Even though it does cause me more weeding later in the year.

Its never too late to learn something new plotman, maybe 2014 should be the year in which you embrace an alternative method of gardening yourself. Gardening for me is all about learning, I've seen a fellow plotholder in his 70's learn a new method of gardening this year 'Hydroponics' and become a convert. So please don't shut out alternative methods we can all learn a lot from those around us which can enrich our lives and our gardens further.

[plotman]

I don't know if anyone is deliberately on a wind up or not but everyone has their own ways of gardening and that is fine but there probably is no need to tell anyone else that they are wrong/silly for doing what they do. I don't think anyone has to justify anything, if it works for them, then it is fine.
As you say, Plotman, it is a shame that we can't help each other out with the digging but, sadly everyone's lives are busy these days and we are all just trying to do what's best.
Let's try and keep this thread open for the sake of the OP because, if it degenerates any more, I fear that it may be closed.

Wouldnt dare suggest that anyone was wrong or silly, (your words not mine) and i feel your unfair singling my comment out when others have suggested that traditional methods are unnecessary and harmful to the soil and individuals. Shame to feel that my comments on helping others is concidered dated as well. Im sure gardeners have always been busy and I for one will always find time for others less fortunate healthwise. Im sure a good number would agree with me.
Still think the comment that rain is harmful to soil amusing )

[chris]

It's more so the tone that your posts are coming across in plotman.

[Mikey]

Still think the comment that rain is harmful to soil amusing )

Who said it was harmful plotman?

[Dorothy rouse]

I took on a new plot 3 years ago, and I dug it as best I could, had to do this to get rid of as much of the rubbish the builders had buried bricks, corrugated concrete, glass,car batteries etc, and I did get satisfaction seeing this newly dug ground, only managed half the first year,but persevered and now it has all been dug, but the ground is very pour and stony, so am building some raised beds this year, and have taken advice from here and covered half of plot with cardboard, topped with compost from bins. The other half has green manures, which will be dug in a bit in the Spring.

So the point I'm making, probably not very well, is that why can't you have Both methods.

Oh yeah, we do help one another on our plots, and look out for each other, and encourage, but no one has time to dig someone else's Plot, lots of allotmenters, only have a few hours at the weekend.

I think if I managed to produce £500.00 of veg like Two Sheds, I'd be very happy, regardless of whatever method she choose.

[veggiechicken]

Still think the comment that rain is harmful to soil amusing )

I'm puzzled by your use of the (embarrassment) smiley all the time. If you're embarrassed by your comments why do you make them?

[Mikey]

I enjoy digging my plot properly and keeping it weeded. Theres nothing like a well kept patch of ground open to the elements to help it break down soil, frost kills bugs on surface and just below and the rain helps add nutrients into the soil as intended. As ive commented before,I feel cardboard, plastic, carpet is just an eyesore for your neighbors and if practiced over many allotments turns the site into a rubbish tip.

Your point here is clearly made, and one you feel needs reiterating.

As for various schools of thought over digging or not digging? I dont buy into that. In my opinion the argument for nature not requiring the soil to be dug is ridiculous.

So are we left to assume that all people that do are ridiculous also?

I know it is mate, What a shame that gardening is being replaced with short cuts. Sad that proper methods are replaced with shabby looking shortcuts

So, are we to believe that in your opinion there is only one way to garden?

Thats an opt out excuse i hear often lol. Alternative methods as in skimping ).

Ha ha, Rain isnt good for the garden, Dohhhhhhh / lol

But i am amazed by the humourous comments by others to try and justify a no dig, no weeding, no effort way of gardening. I heard RAIN is bad for soil lol, Cardboard keeps worms warm ha ha (thats my favourite) Digging is bad for your back, Well yes if your unfit, obese or go out it at a bull at a gate lol.

So is gardening only for the fit, slim and slow?

Wouldnt dare suggest that anyone was wrong or silly, (your words not mine) and i feel your unfair singling my comment out when others have suggested that traditional methods are unnecessary and harmful to the soil and individuals. Shame to feel that my comments on helping others is concidered dated as well. Im sure gardeners have always been busy and I for one will always find time for others less fortunate healthwise. Im sure a good number would agree with me.
Still think the comment that rain is harmful to soil amusing )

I find it strange that you take umbridge over other peoples comments and that you feel you are being singled out, when your own comments are argumentative and belittling. I've chosen to highlight them here for you, perhaps then you might see why you have rubbed some up the wrong way.

Also I believe the use of the embarrassed smiley is neither a defense or an excuse for your tone or comments. I fully believe you have a right to free choice and opinion, and I would defend that right against any that said you couldn't, but it should not be at the expense of others, you'll find people a lot easier to get along with here if your choice of language is less emotive.

[plotman]

I'm puzzled by your use of the (embarrassment) smiley all the time. If you're embarrassed by your comments why do you make them?

Sorry i mistook them as smiles, And as your well aware my comments are honest and accurate and therefore have no reason to cause embarrasement.

[plotman]

I'm puzzled by your use of the (embarrassment) smiley all the time. If you're embarrassed by your comments why do you make them?

Sorry i mistook them as smiles, And as your well aware my comments are honest and accurate and therefore have no reason to cause embarrasement.

[plotman]

Nothing belittling about my comments, Im simply expressing a view that some of the members apparently are rather sensitive about, Maybe i struck a raw nerve, But quite simply i prefer to garden like most allotmenteers in a thorough way using traditional and proven methods, And yes as in all things there is a correct way and there are compromises. The correct way is NOT credited to me, Its just a method that most people use and I have highlighted. Its a shame that a few on here feel the need to twist words in an attempt to justify there alternative shortcuts, I guess sometimes truth hurts.