Introduction
Grow amazing harvests of 40 popular vegetables
Introduction
I share my knowledge about each vegetable’s types, varieties and sowing methods, as well as how to transplant, watering, ways of picking to maximise output and quality, storage, pest protection, clearing, and what to plant next.
The lessons
- Each guide concentrates on one vegetable, occasionally more if you grow them in a similar way, written and structured following the same format.
- My aim is that you understand each vegetable’s special needs and qualities, so that successful harvests are almost certain.
- There is at least one video in each guide (except courgette/zucchini), the majority of which are exclusive to this course.
- Guides average 4000 words each, including the photo captions to an average of 55 photos per guide.
Soil care
There is an occasional reference to weeding, feeding and basic bed preparation. With no dig these are minimal jobs, and are almost the same for all vegetables.
If you are not yet practising no dig, it’s simple. The key part is to stop digging and loosening your soil.
Then rake level and cover the surface with a thin layer of compost, into which you sow and transplant. Or, if you have many weeds, lay cardboard and cover with some compost.
Compost is anything decomposed and does not have to be perfect in appearance. It is organic matter which feeds soil life, maintaining soil with an aerated structure, and far more effectively than we can do it with tools.
Gardening has been made more difficult than it needs to be! Through my long experience, plus reading the work of no diggers who preceded me, I have found easier ways to do similar or better work, more quickly. My method of no dig is adapted to the British climate, in order to have few slugs and even fewer weeds.
No dig – few inputs, straightforward methods
In terms of materials, the main input is compost – I advise a large input at the beginning only, followed by relatively small amounts after that. It’s a common misconception that you need more compost for no dig, but my comparison beds suggest that you need less, in terms of food produced per compost used.
In addition, I find that you need few other inputs. For example, in my garden (of a quarter acre or 1000 m², up to the end of 2020) I use no feeds or fertilisers, and no slug pellets or other chemical inputs. The output every year is over £20,000 in sales, plus plenty of vegetables for home use.
- I have practised no dig for nearly 40 years, largely by instinct at first, because I felt it was the right way.
- Subsequently I observed how there were very few weeds, plus my harvests were high quality, for less time needed.
Science is now on the scene
More recently, science is catching up with explanations for these lovely results. They include less carbon release to the atmosphere, and better cooperation of plant roots with the mycelial networks in soil.
The latter has been known about for some decades, but only recently has been more understood and appreciated. It used to be thought that vegetables do not use mycorrhizal networks to help them find food and moisture. Now we know that they do, and no dig can empower your gardening with this new knowledge.
My Online Courses
‘No Dig Gardening’ has details about smothering weeds when starting out (if you have a lot), advice on making and using compost and setting up a growing space with beds and paths, and gives cropping plans for succession.
‘Skills for growing’ explains propagation, transplanting methods, spacing, picking, watering, succession and rotation, and also has information on perennial vegetables, herbs, container growing and winter cropping.
You will find this course easier once you appreciate the basics of growing, enabling you to concentrate on the details of variation for each vegetable.
The Seasons
I give timings of garden jobs both by month, and by season. The latter is to provide context for those of you in different climates, and in the Southern Hemisphere*.
In my mentions of the four seasons, the months I include in each are shown below. My explanations are to define their gardening characteristics and the main seasonal jobs. Understanding how each season differs really helps you to be a good gardener, for example knowing their differences in light levels as well as in temperature.
Further down are details of each season’s weather at Homeacres, which you can compare to the weather in your area. Knowing the likely weather will improve your success rate, a lot!
*We have created a downloadable calendar of sowings for the Southern Hemisphere.
Spring: March, April and May
Growth begins for new sowings, or resumes for perennial plants, and many weed seeds germinate. The main growth is of leaves.
Initially, growth is slow for plants starting from seed because they need to establish roots as well.
Spring is the best time to benefit from perennial vegetables, which have already established. Overwintered roots of all plants, if biennial or perennial, grow leaves followed by flowering stalks, as a prelude to setting seeds.
- A time for many new sowings, throughout spring.
- Use covers on new plantings in early spring, for weather protection and pests.
- Prepare new beds, if you need them.
- Watch for new weed growth – hoe or rake annual weeds as soon as you see tiny seedlings, and keep removing new shoots of perennial weeds.
Summer: June, July and August
Growth in summer is now considerably faster. This time of maximum plant activity also needs to be the time of your maximum activity!
Plants give harvests of leaf, fruit, root and seed.
Insect pests become common, and weed growth also peaks through these months.
You can add a lot of materials to compost heaps; perhaps turn a heap as well.
- There are many harvests.
- Replant as soon as space is clear, on the same day if possible, and/or interplant.
- Be on time with new sowings, different for each vegetable, especially those of late summer.
- No need for bed prep with no dig, nor for much feeding or weeding; however, stay in control of weeds.
- Cover against insects where appropriate.
Autumn: September, October and November
Every day there is a noticeable decrease in light, but growth continues strongly until late October, thanks to residual warmth. Also because, in many cases, plants are already quite large, meaning they have established root networks to power more growth.
Make the most of autumn’s possibilities, even in the decreasing day length.
Sowings you made in summer, together with new ones made now, result in a full garden until almost the onset of winter.
Autumn is almost as busy as summer – you continue to plant, and take many harvests.
Your compost heaps keep increasing in volume and you can turn older heaps, just once.
- Last sowings of leaf vegetables for winter, under cover especially.
- There are still plantings to make, ahead of winter.
- There are many harvests to secure and store.
- There is soil preparation ahead of winter and spring, which is rapid with no dig.
Winter: December, January and February
Winter sees you eating small but welcome fresh harvests and a lot of stored produce, as well as planning for the year ahead.
There is still preparation for spring, depending how much you achieved in late autumn.
- Finish clearing any remains of harvested vegetables, rake beds level and cover with compost.
- Mulch paths with woody material, and tidy edges around your plot or garden.
- Monitor your stored vegetables to discard any rotting ones, and enjoy the rest!
- Sow a few seeds, but not before late winter and under cover only.
Weather
Weather is all-important and affects everything. It means that your experience of one year will not replicate in the following year! This can be aggrieving because you might think, ‘Now I know how to grow celery’, until the following year a different weather pattern means you don’t succeed in the same way. This is the ‘colour’ of weather, which varies wildly within the climatic averages.
Respect those averages, while expecting some extremes. Become familiar with your weather! As a gardener, this will happen, but keep some records too because memory plays tricks.
- Weather varies so much that I catch myself thinking, ‘Wow, this was such an unusual day/month/year of weather!’ when actually it was not.
- Weather is constantly unusual, and we need to be prepared for both the worst and best eventualities.
- At the same time, be aware of your average weather, because it informs our gardening – what we do and when.
Two important dates are the last frost of spring and the first frost of autumn. Do a search to find them for your location, if unsure.
In recent years the temperatures have increased. Since 2004, I have recorded a mean temperature of 10.5 °C/51 ° F , rising to 11 °C/52 °F from 2013 to 2020.
Sunshine is slightly lower, and rainfall about 5% higher since 2007. In spring 2020 I purchased and had installed a weather station at Homeacres – a Davis Vantage Pro 2.
See my Weather video:
