Winter Solstice 2024

Mulch paths

It's a good time to spread woody material on paths, if you have not already. Older woodchips in small pieces, even conifer, are great for mulching because they feed the soil life more quickly than large pieces of new chip. My recent video about using woodchip explains and demonstrates this, for a result such as in the main photo.

See also my No Dig book, and Compost book.

I sieve to 12 mm because I want soil food more accessible to microbes. Plus for my paths to have a smoother surface than from using large chips. The Vida sieve I use is called a stand-alone / throw-through sieve. It's a straightforward way of separating large from small pieces without straining the back.

Around trees and woody shrubs, woodchips are an ideal mulch and can be in bigger pieces, to last for a few years in some cases. I recommend still to remove weeds that push through, it’s not a no-weed method, but much reduces the weeding

Improving compost quality

In this damp climate, compost often gets soggy, and that means moisture is excluding air. The above heap was covered with plastic sheeting, but even so it's quite wet. Partly because many additions we make are wet leaves, help open by thin layers of woody materials in small pieces.

For compost like this, turning is super worthwhile, to break open wet lumps and introduce air. There is now a plastic sheet on top.

Notice the cardboard lining inside these bins. It helps to hold warmth closer to the edge. Although in this case, I'm not expecting significant heat because the Compost is already 2/3 decomposed. It could even be used on beds at that stage, if you did not have enough finer compost.

Spreading compost before winter

I find that there is an over emphasis on nutrients in discussions about soil fertility. Together with an understated assumption that nutrients in compost can be washed out by rain passing through.

This is not true, as I've been showing over many decades. If compost's nutrients were washing out, growth would not be strong in my gardens, every year. And nutrient density would be low, see below.

Compost applied before winter can nourish soil organisms for a few months already, before you sow and plant. Connections made in winter, between the biologies of compost above and soil below, speed root growth in early spring. I see this every spring in my trial beds, see the recent video No Dig Value.

Another important point to consider is how rain happens all through the year. A summer thunderstorm can wash through soil to considerable depth, so the supposed worry about nutrient leaching “in winter” is not consistent with reality.

Nonetheless, it's good to have examples such as this from Singing Frogs Farm. They are a no dig market garden on 12,000 m² in Sebastopol, California, and generally mulch with up to 5 cm compost, mostly in or before winter.

They took part in a test of nutrient density, comparing their cabbage to a local organic farm where soil is tilled and is not mulched with compost.

“We and the other farm grew green cabbage out of the same seed packet (the same cabbage from last week’s box) harvested the middle of November and it had 41% more Vitamin K, 70% more Vitamin E, 31% more Vitamin B1, 60% more vitamin B3, 23% more vitamin B5, 41% more calcium, and third less of the sodium,  but the biggest difference was more than twice the phenolics and phytosterols, 48% more Carotenoids…. the building blocks of a healthy functioning immune system!” (Elizabeth Kaiser, owner of the farm).

Old toilet compost

When we empty out last year's contents, as above, they have absolutely no smell, and are beautifully aerated. I have no issues with using this compost for growing vegetables. Others might, so it's just on two beds of 2.4 m² each, where the harvests are for home use. One bed gave 18 kg / 40 lb potatoes in 2024.

The sweetness of this compost is helped also by the base being soil. Urine cannot accumulate inside any sealed container. The urine is not lost to growth because tree roots are underneath the compost toilet, from hedges of forsythia and willow around it.

Earthworms are busy

Lumbricus terrestris worms grow large, and eat a lot. The photo below is tree leaves, being taken down into their burrows.

I gently pulled upwards on one and could feel that it was already quite in the soil. This activity now is another reason for spreading compost at this time. Worms and other soil life are hungry, in this climate at least, during late autumn and through winter.

Talks and Events

I am thrilled by the interest in soil, and I noticed when giving talks, the response is strong and happy. There was a huge audience to hear my No-Dig talk at Leon sea Essex, on Tuesday third December. If you're interested to host a talk, please email Nicola on admin@charlesdowding.co.uk.

I am giving many talks soon. Detials are on my Events page.

18th January at West Dean College, Chichester.

Classes on No Dig in the British Virgin Islands, early February.

Talk at Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival 21st February.
On 14th February, BBC Gardeners Question Time are there.

12th and 13th April I give courses in Denmark, see @selvforsynerhaven on Instagram, Emil Rindom

In May, I shall be in the Netherlands, as above.

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More to come.

Monthly Seed Collections

t's been a pleasure to work with Premier Seeds Direct and assemble collections of their seeds, for my recommended sowings of the main months through the year. More details are on their website.

Your own mix for potting

It’s not yet time to sow seeds, but you could prepare potting compost. My mix is as follows:

50% one year old home-made compost, 10% worm compost, 10% woodchip three years old. All sieved to 4-5 mm. For sieving, the compost cannot be soggy, you need to spread it somewhere dry first.

You may not have enough homemade compost to go 100% in the mix. I don’t and the remaining 40% I add is proprietary compost, Urban Wyrm peat free. Many peat free composts do not grow decent plants, but this one does. Also it’s 30% wormcasts, and there's no doubt that all plants love growing in that.

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