- Charles Dowding
- Posts
- No dig May magic
No dig May magic
Charles Dowding
May 01, 2025
Go go for summer
One no dig bed grows a lot of food, 30th April from mid-March transplants, gave 870g / 2 lb spinach on that morning. On left is kohlrabi.
Lots is growing but it’s the Hungry Gap! New plantings are mostly not ready to harvest, except for leaves and shoots. So it’s a great time to for feasts of spinach, lettuce, and asparagus.
We made this series of five email lessons, on successive days, to help you avoid common mistakes. Save time, effort and materials. Food growing can be stressful or fun, it’s your choice.
Turnips are an exception to the Hungry Gap. Especially the Hakurei type, bred in Japan. As well as growing very fast, they have superb flavour and can fill you up nicely! They are now close to flowering stage, so harvest them soon, and water too.
Then you can re-sow in August, for harvests in autumn.
Turnips on 30th April, transplanted 53 days, multisown 11th February
Spring harvests
Tokyo turnip harvest same evening, they are crisp and sweet
Broccoli Claret F1 on 17th April. We removed these plants 28th April, by which time the new shoots were thin and short
Asparagus year 13 and two crowns have merged into a large ring of spears
Peas Hurst Greenshaft transplanted 8th March at 25 cm spacing, and picked three times already for shoots, which continue cropping until solstice
Vegetable gardens take much time to maintain in top and productive condition. In the photo above, for example, the empty bed on left was until five days ago full of palette plants. They've been giving wonderful broccoli until now when the new shoots become fibrous and less tender. So we twisted them out, and they will be shredded for the compost heap.
More sowings
It's a top time to sow kalettes and Brussels sprouts, because they need the whole summer to grow decent sized plants which can give you a worthwhile harvest. Likewise autumn cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli. Whereas kale is good to sow at any time until July.
If not already in the ground, plant potatoes, and sow carrots, parsnips, lettuce, salad onions, radish, leeks, broad beans and peas. For the last three in the list, asap.
Small garden 28th April, tomatoes are under fleece and courgette / zucchini are now planted bottom right, after overwintered broccoli
Plant out, no rush
The first half of May is about plants that need warmth to thrive. That includes French and runner beans, which I do not sow before 10th May. even in the greenhouse. Often there are cold nights and even frost in the !ce Saints period, 11th-15th May. After which we are normally frost free, and it's a lovely time for setting out plants which need summer warmth.
Later plantings catch up.
Squash and cucurbits quickly fill large spaces - don't crowd them.
Squash also are well suited to grow through plastic when reclaiming ground from weeds. The plastic provides warmth and retains moisture. See more about using it to smother weeds and grow food, in my Beginners Course.
2024 on 22nd May. One month old squash transplanted 5 days earlier through plastic, in wet weather. Harvest in September was excellent.
Watering
It's unusually dry. We've had only 22 mm / less than 1 inch in nine weeks. Compared to an average for that period of around 150 mm / 6 in. Fortunately the ground was saturated when the dry conditions started.
Growth has been fantastic because of the high light levels. Now however watering is becoming important, especially for new plantings, and salad plants. See this short video for more ideas.
28th April after two dry months, I water by hand, no irrigation system
Using covers
Much of my garden has been under fleece covers through April. Now things change and we removed many on 27th April during a course day here.
For carrots and brassicas, I replace fleece with mesh, against root flies. And for a while longer, keep onions meshed against leaf miner.
Fleece cover sits directly on onion plants and they push it up. I keep it on perhaps another month, against Allium leaf miner. We remove it to weed every three weeks. and it’s quick thanks to do dig, fewer weeds.
New beds are still possible
No dig course on 26th April at Cherry Taylor’s near Monmouth. Sowing carrots in a new bed with 10cm compost on cardboard, thick weeds below. The carrots will be short! - photo by Magda
EVENTS
There are great offerings coming up at Homeacres, including a day course here with just a few places this Wednesday 7th May. Then another day course on 21st May.
For the weekend course on 24th-25th May, it's highly unusual that this one has not sold out yet. The weekend courses offer fantastic opportunities to ask more questions, study specific items in depth, and make great friends.
Peas need staking, bulb onions on right are now re-covered against insects, 28th April
Workshops in Holland 10th May and 11th May are presentations and practicals. 9th May in Utrecht is sold out.
No dig in Anchorage, Alaska 15th May
No dig in Juneau Alaska 17th May and composting 18th May
Evening 6th June in Chichester, supper and talk at The Barn
Festival 7th June at Westerlands Farm north of Chichester
Open Day 8th June, part of Alhampton village gardens event
London Grow Urban discussion 8th June
Crops not shops festival, no dig talk solstice 21st June
With Gaz Oakley here 13th July, roots and flame
No dig and seed saving in Bingenheim Germany 13th - 14th September
Please see my Events page for even more no dig events and details.
Reply