My Story

I am Charles Dowding

I’m from a farming family, and it’s been a journey of decades to find new ways of growing the soil more naturally. I feel fortunate to have lived well and learnt a lot. I want to share that with you and others.

The main focus of my adult life has been to grow healthy and health-giving food. Now that there is more interest in that, I am developing the teaching side of what I do to reach out more widely, while continuing to run a small market and teaching garden in Somerset, UK, close to where I was born.

I was conventional as a teenager, not questioning the world I saw. Then, in 1979, aged 20, I awoke to an awareness of nutrition and its links to food production. I had recently become a vegetarian and that led me to explore organic gardening. And the soil.

Facts about Charles

1. He had a eureka moment when he was 15, discovering the wonderful taste of broad beans.
2. He studied geography at Cambridge University from 1977 to 1980, and became vegetarian. 
3. He started an organic no dig market garden in autumn 1982 – 1.5 acres increasing to 7.5 by 1986. 
4. He actively promoted ‘organic’ through the 1980s, but there was little interest in soil and no dig. 
5. He was on BBC’s Gardener’s World in 1989 with Geoff Hamilton – a full programme about organic gardening.
6. He lived on a small farm in South-West France from 1991 to 1997, and married there. 
7. His first book appeared in 2007, sparking interest in no dig – 13 more books have followed. 
8. He moved to Homeacres in November 2012, intending it to be a garden for teaching more than selling. 
9. He published his first Calendar of Sowing Dates in 2018.
10. He joined Facebook in 2009, Twitter in 2012, YouTube in 2013, Instagram in 2016, Pinterest in 2018, and TikTok in 2022.

My mission is to share evidence-based understandings that help gardeners to:

Grow more, from fewer resources, in less time.

The core method I have developed is no dig. It enables us to grow more food from less input.

No dig requires less compost than if you dig, for the same amount of harvest. We see this on my trial beds, from which I have recorded harvests every year since 2007. We find that even a smaller disturbance of forking the soil, as opposed to digging, reduces growth.

I share this knowledge worldwide and I’d like you to share it with friends, neighbours, and online. We can help ourselves and the planet at the same time.

 

My campaigning Goals 

1. To teach how no dig simplifies gardening, even in unexpected ways – more food for less work
2. To increase the confidence and success rate of growers
3. To learn more about the health links between soil and body, and to share what I have learnt

How it all began

The key moments in my life that brought me to where I am today.

I grew up on the family dairy farm in Shepton Montague, Somerset. My two brothers were keen on farming; I was not!

1978–80

Three years at Cambridge University opened my eyes to more of the world – I became vegetarian, and interested in nutrition.

1981

I worked as maintenance man on the Argyll Hotel, Iona, in the Scottish Hebridean Islands.

1982–90

I created an organic and no dig market garden on 1.5 acres of the family land in Shepton Montague. By 1986, I had cropped 7.5 acres of no dig beds.

1991–97

I lived in France, married, bought a 40-acre farm near Agen (between Bordeaux and Toulouse), lived self-sufficiently and sold vegetables at the local market.

1998–2012

Most of the time I was looking after farm animals, but also ran a no dig vegetable garden and sold produce at the local market. Then in 1997 we decided to return to my roots in Shepton Montague, at Lower Farmhouse which I had inherited.

2007

My first book appeared and I started teaching courses at the farm. I also gave many talks including at RHS in Tokyo, and at Kew Gardens in London.

2011 onwards

I advised National Trust at Sissinghurst about converting their market garden to no dig, and, in 2015, RHS Wisley about going no dig.

2013

I started a new garden at Homeacres after separating from my wife Susie. I had no plan but wanted to teach and share my knowledge about easier ways to garden. I published my first YouTube video in September 2013.

2022

I brought out four books, initiated the first No Dig Day, and continued to expand Homeacres’ garden.