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The UK's leading no-dig gardening expert, Charles Dowding, draws on his years of experience to show how easy it is to start a new vegetable garden.Any plot - whether a building site, overgrown with weeds or unwanted lawn - can be turned into a beautiful and productive vegetable area. Charles's no-nonsense and straightforward advice is the perfect starting point for the beginner or experienced gardener.
The book takes you step-by-step through everything - from planning, clearing the ground and the early stages of starting a vegetable garden, to growing in polytunnels and greenhouses. There is also helpful guidance on how to use mulch, ways to minimise digging, and planting/sowing tips across the seasons.
Filled with labour-saving ideas and the techniques that Charles uses to garden so successfully,
How to Create a Vegetable Garden is illustrated throughout with photos and tales from Charles's first year in his new vegetable garden.
List of contents
Foreword by Steve Mercer
Introduction
Part One: Clearing ground and preparing soil
1. Starting points
2. Beauty in the food garden
3. The setting
4. Clearing ground
5. Mulching
6. Building beds
7. Dig versus no-dig (with compost)
8. Dig versus no-dig (without compost)
Part Two: Sowing and growing
9. Raising plants under cover
10. Early sowing and plantings
11. Successional sowings and plantings
12. One bed, one year
13. Growing under cover
14. Hot beds
15. Perennial vegetables
Appendix: Seasons and climate zones
Glossary
Resources
Index
About the author
Charles Dowding is an internationally recognised organic gardening expert, and a former winner of the Garden Media Guild Practical Journalist of the Year award. He contributes articles to many magazines, including Gardeners’ World, Gardens Illustrated and Grow It!, talks on radio and television, and runs courses and advises on best practice, including for the National Trust in the UK.
Charles is a veteran organic grower, having practised no-dig gardening for many years. In his gardens he has conducted experiments to compare differences in growth between vegetables on dug and undug soil, showing that the dug beds have slightly lower yields, and more weeds and slugs. He established a new garden from scratch, to illustrate no-dig practice and form the basis for further experimentation.
