Compost is at the heart of Charles Dowding’s transformative No Dig system of growing. Feeding the soil community with a mulch of compost is the surest way to ensure nutrients are available for your plants to flourish. In trials, Charles has found there is no more nourishing compost than homemade.

What’s more, by making your own compost, not only are you recycling your garden and kitchen waste, by feeding your soil you are increasing its carbon-storing capacity and doing your bit to reduce greenhouse gases.

Charles shares his years of experience to demystify and simplify:
– What to compost and how to get the balance right
– Busting all the myths that put people off composting
– Effective composting for every situation from balcony gardening to smallholding
– Achieve the best results with different systems, from hotboxes and wormeries, through single bins, to pallet heaps, and multi-bay set-ups

Compost is a beautifully illustrated, infallible guide to producing compost gold.

Have you ever wondered how to transform a weedy plot into a thriving vegetable garden? Well now you can!
By following the simple steps set out in No Dig, in just a few short hours you can revolutionise your vegetable patch with plants already in the ground from day one!

Charles Dowding is on a mission to teach that there is no need to dig over the soil, but by minimising intervention you are actively boosting soil productivity. In fact, The less you dig, the more you preserve soil structure and nurture the fungal mycelium vital to the health of all plants. This is the essence of the No Dig system that Charles Dowding has perfected over a lifetime growing vegetables.

So put your gardening gloves on and get ready to discover:

– Guides and calendars of when to sow, grow, and harvest.
– Inspiring information and first-hand guidance from the author
– “Delve deeper” features look in-depth at the No Dig system and the facts and research that back it up.
– The essential role of compost and how to make your own at home.
– The importance of soil management, soil ecology, and soil health.

Now one of the hottest topics in environmental science, this “wood-wide web” has informed Charles’s practice for decades, and he’s proven it isn’t just trees that benefit – every gardener can harness the power of the wood-wide web. Featuring newly- commissioned step-by-step photography of all stages of growing vegetables and herbs, and all elements of No Dig growing, shot at Charles’s beautiful market garden in Somerset, you too will be able to grow more veg with less time and effort, and in harmony with nature – so join the No Dig revolution today!

A must-have volume for followers of Charles Dowding who fervently believe in his approach to low input, high yield gardening, as well as gardeners who want to garden more lightly on the earth, with environmentally friendly techniques like organic and No Dig.

The book takes you step-by-step through:

    * Planning and early stages
    * Clearing the ground
    * Mulch – what, why, how?
    * Minimizing digging
    * Sowing and planting across the seasons
    * Growing in polytunnels and greenhouses

It is filled with labour-saving ideas and the techniques that Charles uses to garden so successfully and is illustrated throughout with photos and tales from Charles’s first year in his new vegetable garden.

Not much grows in winter, but a well-organised plot may nonetheless be quite full. You need to plan carefully, and well ahead (as early as spring) for sowing and planting at specific times through the year, so the main part of the book is an extensive month-by-month sowing, planting and growing calendar. Further sections cover harvesting, from garlic in July right through to the last of the overwintered greens in May, and storing your produce.

Many salads can be grown in winter, especially with a little protection from fleece, cloches or larger structures. The book includes a whole section on frost-hardy salad plants, explaining how to ensure harvests of fresh leaves throughout winter. The beauty of winter and its produce is captured in glorious photographs from the author’s garden.