Charles Dowding’s Vegetable Garden Diary: No Dig, Healthy Soil, Fewer Weeds

An illustrated full-color gardener’s journal with perpetual diary—75% advice on how to grow great crops, 25% writing space for each day of the year—a manual to inform and inspire

Use this journal year after year to make the best decisions, with your notes alongside Charles Dowding’s suggestions for future reference. Advice in the diary section is linked to each week of the season, and takes you through the annual cycle, from clearing weeds, feeding soil, and sowing to harvesting and storing vegetables.

• Advice on sowing and planting methods, plus raising plants at home
• Best sowing dates: seeds neither fail in cold nor start too late
• Advantages of no dig: saving time, fewer weeds and bigger crops
• How to maintain control of weeds through timely mulching and hoeing
• How to feed soil just once a year, for strong and healthy growth
• When and how to make all the harvests, with advice on storing produce too

Charles’ gardens are famous for the absence of weeds - “where is all the cheap labor you must be hiring?” is a common question on course days. Yet it’s a fact that untilled soil, with a humus-rich surface, germinates fewer pioneer weed seeds, as described by Professor Elaine Ingham. This and other natural principles will make your life a whole lot easier.

The diary explains these methods and weaves them into a timeline of action, to increase your success rate. Good timing is good gardening! Book is most appropriate for zones 8/9, for other zones the dates need adapting: for example he has great feedback from zone 6 gardeners using his methods. And you can flesh out the detail with his You Tube videos, where over half the audience is North American.