No dig gardening

[rary]

I have been putting my waste, which is usually composted, directly onto the garden, I have not had much trouble with weeds, but I have had poor results in the garden, which could be down to the cold wet weather, but was wondering would I be better to compost the material first?

[Bren In Pots]

I always compost mine otherwise I'm sure I'd only be feeding rats and mice

[Deano's "Diggin It"]

I always compost mine otherwise I'm sure I'd only be feeding rats and mice

That would be my worry too Bren, but a lot of people have success with "Chop n Drop"

I couldn't do it! Would drive my OCD "Banana's"

[Bal]

I'm going to go no dig this year but will use composted stuff. Couldn't hear to see the all the raw stuff from my kitchen window. Not too worried about the rats as one of the cats just keeps bringing them home. Dead in pleased to say

[Mr Bones]

If we did chop and drop we'd be inundated with slugs. Must say though, first full year as no dig I'm well impressed with the results.

[veggiechicken]

I have been putting my waste, which is usually composted, directly onto the garden,

Don't you have a flush toilet, rary?
Bur seriously, what sort of waste? No-diggers cover the soil with a mulch (compost, manure etc) which suppresses weeds and feeds the soil.
The smaller the material the quicker it will do its stuff. If you're lobbing cabbage stalks and other big stuff on, it would take ages to become usable. So I'd say, either chop it up first or keep it in a separate compost heap.

[Bren In Pots]

I grow no dig and mulch with dalek compost, grass, leaf mould but looking at my beds I'm eventually going to have to put sides around to prevent everything from falling on the paths.

[Guest]

Are you direct sowing? If weeds don't germinate it is not fair to think your seeds will. Even with mulches I get issues with direct sowings but it is trial and error

[rary]

Don't you have a flush toilet, rary?
Bur seriously, what sort of waste? No-diggers cover the soil with a mulch (compost, manure etc) which suppresses weeds and feeds the soil.
The smaller the material the quicker it will do its stuff. If you're lobbing cabbage stalks and other big stuff on, it would take ages to become usable. So I'd say, either chop it up first or keep it in a separate compost heap.

I should have said vegetable waste which is usually chopped up or shredded, no kitchen waste is added as that goes to my worms, the reason I have been putting it on the beds without composting it is due to lack of space for a compost heap, I do use a couple of bins but to get compost from them takes quite a time ad I am unable to turn them, so thought I would try putting the compostable
Material strait onto the ground

[Jungle Jane]

If you're sowing overwintering beans or peas direct in the ground,or you know where your beans are going in the summer,you could dig a hole near it to put the vegetable waste? I chop & drop some plants like runner beans,sweetcorn,some flowers but not brassica that gets buried away from whitefly populations. Blackbirds enjoy searching the chop & dropped stuff,it's not a mess it's a mulch

[roitelet]

I garden with minimal dig, chop and drop, trench composting and conventional composting. The beds that get the chop and drop I aerat with a long fine tined fork the spud beds don't need doing and I only trench compost for beans and squashes. Really does reduce the work. I cover the vegetable matter with straw and if I need to direct sow I just move the straw aside. I only do the chop and drop during the autumn and just top up the straw mulch during the rest of the year.

[ESBkevin]

I'm like Roitelet in that I do a mixture. Some stuff has to be composted in case it has viable seed or disease, the hot compost method will sort that out. Some stuff is a bit big and gets chopped and composted, other material goes straight on the surface. I like my animal manure to be composted at least 1 year.
At first I was not overly impressed, but as time and seasons have progressed I have got better and better results. The moisture retention and regulated soil tempurature alone are a good reason to do it.
Is it less work than digging? It's less heavy work for sure, proper double digging a large area is back breaking and takes time. But you need to put effort into collecting enough organic materials and spreading them so it's not without effort, it's just easier and less strenuous. In terms of the qaulity of the soil it is very nice and the lack of disturbance to the structure is what gives plants a head start. Having a living root in the soil maintains the fungal growth required, so chop and drop green manures between crops give a great boost to the following seed or plants.

Two good sources of more data on yootoob are
Charles Dowding ( he has books and blogs as well as a YT chanel.
Mark at "I am organic gardening" on YT is another great source (although with an American twist). Mark does a good job of explaining the science behind the practice.

So you could say I'm a convert. I still do some conventional digging but only because i love the smell of fresh turned earth in the winter.

[Jay-ell]

Usually everything ended up in the compost bin but this year I've been using grass cuttings to mulch my beds in the New Territories as they need all the organic stuff they can get and if I leave them uncovered they throw up poppies and weeds in no time.

I also shredded the pea stalks and broad beans and used them on the bed with the sweetcorn (apparently grass cuttings have an aleotropic effect on other grasses e.g sweetcorn).

The leaves from the sprouts and any old leaves from the other brassicas have been layered over one of the beds in the Jungle to help keep the weeds down. This bed also has white rot and decomposing brassicas are supposed to help with that.

I use the rhubarb leaves in a similar way to cover a large area and also used uncooked leaves(lettuce, rocket, spinach) which has bolted to cover as well.

Cooked kitchen waste gets bokashi and chucked in the compost.

Weeds have been pulled up, left to wilt and then Split between the compost and the beds.

The soil on the beds in the New Territories I've been mulching has improved and is much better than the one I haven't mulched. I've also had less weeds since I've been mulching them.

Of course because of this I now have less stuff composting.

I've now got a pile of hawthorn prunings that I need to put through the shredder and mulch with.

Then there'll be the bean stalks from the frenchies and runners, plus the next lot of broadies which will all be shredded.

the stalks from the sprouts and Kale will also be shredded along with anything too tough.

[veggiechicken]

Saw this and I thought of you Rary, https://www.growveg.co.uk/guides/com...in-situ/?redir

[rary]

Thanks VC my thinking for putting raw compostable material directly onto my beds was any nutrients leaking from it would go into the soil, I still think it should work ok as I had started this thread before discovering all the tree roots in my beds that lead to the other no dig thread and as I posted on there I will try builders bags, and going with the principal of that information you posted above I should be able to add quite a lot of uncomposted material and cover it with a foot or so of soil