Today I'm at Nunnington Hall in Yorkshire, a garden that's run on organic principles by Nick Fraser
Head Gardener for over 17 years. The veg plot here is small but highly productive
with wonderfully healthy soil and I'm going to find out more about how it's managed.
So Nick, this is the vegetable garden, how long have you been growing here?
Well we've been growing in this garden for about 15 years prior to that it was just used for growing cut flowers for the house.
Prior to that it was the old tennis court, and so we stuck with the name the cutting garden
even though we now grow seasonal vegetables in here we also grow some cut flowers
so rather than just call it the vegetable garden we call it the cutting garden.
And you manage it on organic principles?
Absolutely yes, we manage it on a pretty much no-dig organic principles
that means that rather than digging the soil each year, we put a layer of compost onto the surface and then we replant through that surface layer of mulch.
And would you would you recommend no-dig for people at home?
Absolutely. There's a couple of complications with no dig, you have to be producing a certain amount of compost each year to cover the surface
but I would certainly recommend doing as little digging as possible in any garden because it's not good for the soil structure
and it's also it's a lot of hard work as well.
Yeah it certainly is! I can see the compost you're mulching with is really, really nice, so how thick a layer do you put on?
We put a layer of between an inch and two inch layer of compost over the top
and that will then be incorporated in by the worms and invertebrates over the course of season.
It will also produce that fertilizer to the plants, as it rains that will wash through the surface mulch
to provide that slow release fertilizer to the roots underneath.
and so do you do you sow seeds and things directly into the mulch?
We don't sow many seeds, the other principle with no-dig is it's better to grow as many things undercover as possible
in pots or modules, so then you can then see if you've had any failures and you've got gaps.
It's a more efficient way of doing it, then as one thing is harvested you take your modules or pots out of the greenhouse
and then plant them straight in so there's never any downtime, you've always got your beds full.
Okay so show me how you plant onions at this time of year.
So these are the onion sets, these are immature onions. I'll be putting these in around about six to nine inches apart.
There is a top, there is a bottom. It's quite clear to see where the root is and the tip of the top is the growing point,
some people just push them into the ground but that can damage the bulb a little bit
so I prefer to use a very sharp pointy trowel and just do a little gap and just firm them in
so the top is just coming out of the surface, you can just see the surface.
Oh yeah okay, so they're just really sitting in that mulch layer but they'll root through into the soil beneath?
Actually I'm just digging slightly below the mulch layer, just into the soil below.
The one danger with the young plants at this age is the little tips that are sitting out the surface,
the birds love to pull at those, so I do have some netting here and when we're finished I'll roll the netting back over.
And not only is it the pigeons and the blackbirds and the pheasants,
we also have a family of peacocks living in the garden and they are keen to pull anything out that I've planted.
So here we are in the greenhouse and we're going to plant up some broad bean seeds into modules.
This is a compost mix that we've made this morning. This has got some of our own sieved compost from our own compost heaps
some of our own sieved leaf mould, it's got a little bit of wool based compost,
a little bit of grit and a little bit of sand in there to make a nice friable mix.
So I'm going to loosely fill these these modules, I'm not going to press it down too much
just a little firm a little tap to even off the surface and I'm using these broad bean seeds
which are Aquadulce Claudia, very well known, a good consistent broad bean,
quite tall but really nice consistent pods with good sized beans.
They'll actually put on multiple stems so you need to plant them fairly far apart
so double rows with about nine inches apart when you've planted them out into the garden, and it's just one bean for each module.
Are you pushing them down very far?
I'm pushing them down just about an inch into the surface, so just underneath
and I'll just put a bit of friable soil back over the top and it's as simple as that.
Sometimes you put two beans per pot don't you? But with something like this the likelihood is they're all going to germinate.
Yeah you get a really good germination on these so you're probably looking at about 90% germination.
So for people who don't have a greenhouse, can they do this anyway? Where would they sow them?
If you've got a cool conservatory or you've got a cold frame or even if you haven't
you can buy those very little outdoor propagators, little wooden things with the with the lid that lifts up
if you haven't got space or resources for a full greenhouse.
National Trust gardens can be great sources of inspiration
and our gardeners and volunteers are always happy to talk
so why not come and visit one of our places or get the National Trust School of Gardening from our shop.