No Dig Home and Garden

No dig organic gardening saves time and work. The authors draw on decades of experience to explain the skills you need for growing great vegetables in less time. They explain and illustrate delicious ways to eat them, and other things you can do with garden plants.

Setting up a no dig garden:

• make compost and enrich soil
• learn skills you need to sow and grow annual and perennial veg
• harvest and prepare food year round
• make natural cosmetics, cleaning products and garden preparations

These approaches work as well in small spaces as in large gardens. The authors’ combined experience gives you ways of growing, preparing, and storing the plants you grow for many uses, including delicious vegetable feasts and many recipes and ideas for increasing self-reliance, saving money, living sustainably, and enjoying the pleasure of growing your own food, year round.

Just read this cover to cover in 48 hours, hats off, this is the most inspiring book I have read on the subject of gardening

Christian Mugge, Facebook 10.03.19

 

New calendar for 2021

The calendar is A4 opening to A3, with photos from Charles’ garden – a large one and a small one for each month, with explanatory captions.

Enjoy the seasonal beauty of Homeacres vegetable garden, all year round.

Charles has written a vegetable growing summary for every month, 170 words or so.  There are four extra pages for 2021: one about the benefits of no dig, and three about where to buy seeds, and which varieties to sow.

Each month has Charles’ favourite sowing dates for each vegetable, at their best times of year. Every date is based on decades of fine tuning.

• Use these dates to help you enjoy a regular supply of fresh produce through all four seasons.

The calendar sowing dates are for a Zone 8b climate in southern UK. Sow later by 1-4 weeks in spring if your climate is cooler, then sow a week or two earlier in summer and autumn, from the solstice onwards.

Sowing dates are based mainly on season/climate, and partly on moon phases. My main advice is to sow at the best time of year for each different vegetable. Within that best time, there are sometimes even better times!

Solar and lunar

I combine two moon aspects for calculating my sow dates. One is the phases of root-flower-leaf-fruit, based on whether the moon is passing through an astrological sign with earth-air-water-fire qualities. The other is waxing and waning: where possible I sow on a waxing moon for faster emergence and stronger growth, especially just before full moon.

Sun and moon give us a framework of action, it’s not a rigid rulebook. There are few dates when all good aspects are present.

32 pages printed on 200gsm Premium Gloss Paper, with 350gsm cover.

Hole-punched, for hanging on a wall.