Huw is trying a new method with no garden plan to experiment and learn.
Thanks to Huw Richards for sharing his wisdom and knowledge! I wrote the following notes watching the video published on Huw Richards’ channel.
You can watch it using this YouTube link.
Succession planting
This method is important to optimize the garden space and always have something growing in all available areas.
For example, Huw followed potatoes with leaks in this month of July.
Bouncing of leaks
If a leak looks a little bit sad after transplantation, it’s OK. Water them and they will recover shortly.
Harvesting lettuces
Similarly to Charles Dowding, Huw adopted the method to harvest lettuces by picking the outer leaves regularly, which helps to produce a lot more than cutting the salad.
Growing parsley under runner beans
Parsley likes shade. What better idea than growing it under runner beans, that climb up high. At least, for Huw, it has been very successful.
Squashes
I agree with Huw about squashes: don’t plan them too packed because all varieties grow and spread a lot. I see that with my volunteer curry pumpkins, that I have been grown from the seeds. I throw in the compost pile the seeds after prepare a dish and, in the past four years, they have work awesomely well.
They always produce so much, in my opinion, especially when you know that I only water them during the summer and they produce from 12 to 17 kg of crops per year.
Interestingly, I never get diseases with those volunteer squashes.
No Dig focus
Huw’s garden was already 95% No Dig in 2021, at the time of the shooting of the vlog.
Using Charles Dowding No Dig, he will use organic matter to built up some strong and resilient soil life.
I’ve been trying out the No Dig also for 3 years. The main challenge is to gather enough organic matter.
My most successful organic matter is cottonwood dead leaves. They’re small and abundant around my area and last winter, the girls and I picked up 12 trailers (700 liters of volume) and we have got a good amount left still. Worms have found their home in the leftover piles, which is awesome.
I use them to cover the bed in winter (about 20 to 30 cm thick layer) and I add some to cover the irrigation pipes in the summer to protect them from the sun.
Plug in gaps technique
With a no garden plan, you prepare seedlings and fill the gaps in beds, finding a home for everyone.
Introduce more flowers to the garden
Flowers attract pollinators in the garden.
So, as a message to my future self, grow more. The ladies in the household will appreciate it :)
At the moment, we have got comfrey, borages, Echinacea, one cosmos flower, self-sown from last year.
To keep the cosmos flowers flowering, remove the dead flowers.
Growing onions
Huw never grows onions from seeds. It takes too much effort.
I tried to grow some this year, but they didn’t do well, at least not as great as the garlic.
More diversity of sweet peas
Just like Huw, I love sweet peas. They taste just awesome, right off the plant, no need to cook them.
This year, we harvested seeds from pods we let grow big and hopefully, we’ll plant them next year.
It’s amazing to harvest your own seed, making your garden resilient as you enter the cycle of self-sufficiency.
I’d love to find those pink and purple sweet peas that Huw grows. Mine are only white.
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