Organic Gardening

Charles Dowding has written many books on vegetable growing and contributes regularly to many magazines, including Permaculture, Gardeners’ World, Gardens Illustrated & Grow It!. He gives regular talks, advising gardeners on best practice and runs courses on organic, no-dig gardening. He is a regular guest on radio and TV. A veteran organic grower, he has practised no-dig gardening for years, providing produce for local and London markets, running a small farm in France, then producing salad on surface-composted, undisturbed clay soil, which grew bountiful crops and few weeds. He has run experiments to compare differences in growth between vegetables on dug and undug soil, discovering different patterns of growth in most seasons, with slightly lower yields and more weeds and slugs on the dug beds.

• Foreword by Patrick Holden, CBE, Founder of the Sustainable Food Trust & ex-director of The Soil Association Introduction Part 1: Letting Nature Nurture your GardenThe art of not digging The basics Deciding what to grow What’s in season? Living with pests Sowing seeds, raising plants Making compost The moon Part 2: Healthy HarvestsSummer salads Winter salads Alliums Choice of roots Savouring summer Brassicas Tomatoes, greenhouse vegetables and unusual vegetables Perennial vegetables Herbs and edible flowers Tree fruit and nuts Soft fruit (berries) Postscript Appendix: Dig/no-dig experiment at Lower Farm Resources Bibliography Main index Index of recipes

Charles's crops positively glow with health, in testament to his methods... he conveys a deep reverence for the soil, which has fuelled his no-dig ethos.