(birds chirping)
- Last year we made three videos here
about comparisons,
trials I'm running,
comparing the effects of forking soil
and no-dig using same compost.
That's strip one, and strip two.
Strip one is forked, strip two is no-dig.
Then the third strip is also no-dig, different compost.
And another trial happening here at the same time,
within all three strips,
is see what happens with no rotation.
So we have fourth year in a row of leeks,
fourth year in a row of cabbage,
fifth year in a row of beans.
So this is a follow-up video
keeping you up to date with progress this year.
And it's exactly a year actually
since we made that first film,
which was last September.
Today is 6th of September, 2017 at Homeacres.
So comparing the forked with the no-forked,
one thing that's amazed me about this
is the difference that forking the soil makes,
and by forking I mean pushing a garden fork
into each bed in turn to its full length,
which is about 11 inches, 27 centimeters,
giving it a wiggle
so it's aerating the soul without turning it.
And then the compost goes on top,
exactly the same as the strip, which is no-dig, next to it,
same amount of compost on both strips.
And last year when I added up the figures of harvest
which is all the things you can see,
including harvest actually that have already happened,
'cause quite a lot of this is second planting,
so it's leeks off potatoes, cabbage after broad beans,
chicory after lettuce
and carrots after spinach,
the totals in one calendar year, last year,
were 120 kilos in strip one,
that's 265 pounds,
and 142 kilos in strip two,
that's nearly 300 pounds.
So it actually, we got quite a lot more harvest,
15% more and more from doing less.
I was like, wow, what's not to like about that one?
But yeah, part of me feels,
I think like most gardeners are,
hey, we need to get out and loosen this soil a bit.
You know, get some air in there.
The more I do these trials,
the more I realize actually no we don't.
It's probably harming things.
You know, more of the stuff you can't see.
Obviously you can see worms
if you cut them while digging, that kind of thing.
But there's all these fungi in here,
fungal threads, high feed,
mycorrhizal fungi.
Turns out maybe they're damaged by forking even,
you know?
So broad forking.
Yeah.
People ask me that a lot.
Yeah, maybe broad forking.
Not only is it not necessary in most cases,
there might be a few where it is,
but in most cases better leave it alone.
Once you got, once you're seeing nice growth,
no-dig really happens, it really rocks.
And then coming on to the next trial
where we comparing...
This is both no-dig now.
Strip two, strip three.
And strip two has the same compost as strip one,
which is green waste compost and mushroom compost.
That's ones that I buy.
They're very nicely processed,
they're very fine when you spread them,
they're easy to sow and plant into.
Strip three has some cow manure, which I buy,
and it's not so nice basically to look at or to handle.
It's more lumpy.
It's typical farmers manure, which you can then compost,
I use it as compost.
It's at least two years old by the time I spread it
but there are some bigger lumps
and however much I break it up.
And what I'm noticing is that,
and I think it's because of those bigger lumps,
I'm getting more slug damage.
Slugs is our number one pest in this climate.
So they seem to like the habitat perhaps.
And you know, I'm summarizing here a bit
but I'm noticing the most problems happen
with things like Chinese cabbage,
which are always attacked by slugs.
More damage in strip three than strip two.
Carrots we've had not such good emergence,
strip three as in strip two,
and actually for strip one this year particularly.
So those little things combined to depress the figures,
and last year it was, so it was 142 kilos here
over 300 pounds in strip two,
and it was 130 in strip three.
So, you know, 5% or more less from using a compost
which I think actually, probably has more nutrients in
but it shows it's not all about that.
It's about the whole structural physical qualities as well.
For example, I'm looking at the leeks here now,
and to me, they look quite a bit darker green
in strip three,
which I think is the effect cow manure compost,
compared to strip two.
And these leeks are the fourth year in a row
of leeks in this area,
and they're looking pretty fine to me.
And they followed potatoes,
so they're a second crop.
We've already had a harvest of potatoes here.
And the potatoes were good as well.
Actually the potatoes yielded most highly on strip three,
the cow manure compost strip.
So far, this year's harvest in the three strips
is 59, 64, 63 in terms of kilos.
So again, strip one,
the forked beds, are a little bit behind the no-dig.
This is ongoing.
I'll be coming back to this one in subsequent years.
And so we will find out more all the time,
continually fascinating.
The cabbages, maybe this year, not looking quite so good,
a bit more insect attack,
but having said that,
there's still some very nice hearts forming.
So this is fourth year cabbage
after fourth year broad beans.
And just to finish on the climbing beans there,
this time last year they were not looking so good,
they've actually nearly finished growing.
Mostly yellow leaves dying off.
And I was scratching my head a bit
and thinking is this the effect of it being
the fourth year in a row of beans at that time.
But anyway I thought, well, I'll dare it
and do a fifth year, so that's fifth year beans now.
And lo and behold, actually they look pretty good,
but we've had very different weather.
So I think it was more weather effect.
We've had a much wetter summer this year.
We had a warmer, dry early summer,
wetter main summer, and they've loved that.
And the only tricky thing now could be
that we're coming into harvest time of dry beans,
which is the harvest in this case,
and I need some warm weather to do that.
So that's fingers crossed for that one.
Thank you.