To dig or not to dig ...

Here at Radford Mill we have been conducting an experiment to compare the effects of digging or not digging the growing beds on the productivity of some of our crops.

The idea, advocated by Charles Dowding (www.charlesdowding.co.uk), is that when you dig the soil you destroy the microflora and fungal networks which act as extensions to the plants' root systems. These then need to re-establish themselves, which takes more time.

We have two beds, side by side, one dug and one not dug. Otherwise what we have sown in each bed, and the amount of compost added is the same. You can see from the photos that the plants in the no-dig bed are bigger.

One significant advantage of this approach is that it is much faster to prepare the beds. Another advantage is that we hope the plants will be stronger and less prone to disease and attacks from pests. The trial continues, and we shall see.

Undug bed                         dug bed

Our wonderful Autumn Festival

Thank you to everybody who supported our Autumn Festival and made it such a great success. Fortunately the weather was kind to us, we had a good turnout and we were really pleased with how well it went. Thank you to everyone who volunteered and gave of their time. To the artists and musicians who entertained us, the workshop holders and therapists and everyone who turned up to enjoy the space and have a good time.

There was a lively buzz on site combined with a lovely relaxed atmosphere. The beautiful location, the excellent music, the sumptuous food, the range of traditional workshops, healing therapies and fun and creative things to do all helped to make this a really enjoyable day out.

Thank you to Sam for organising it and pulling it together and thank you to everyone on the farm who got behind the event and made it happen. It was a genuine community effort.

We are now planning our Winter 2012 – Spring 2013  programme of activities. If you are interesting in supporting the farm and finding out about forthcoming events or if you have any ideas for things we could do, you can find our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/RadfordMillFarm?fref=ts. 

We have posted a number of additional photos there.