Charles Dowding's Vegetable Garden Diary: No Dig, Healthy Soil, Fewer Weeds

Introduction by Darina Allen.

A manual of gardening to inform and inspire you, packed with illustrations.

I give advice on how to grow great crops. Use it year after year –  it has an ‘any year’ format.

Advice in the diary section is linked to each week of the season, and includes:

• The advantages of no dig, for less time needed
• Sowing seed at the best moment – seeds will neither fail in cold nor start too late
• Sowing and planting methods, plus raising plants at home
• Maintaining control of weeds through timely mulching and hoeing
• How to feed soil, for strong and healthy growth, more easily
• When and how to make all the harvests, with advice on storing produce

This is a garden companion of seasonal prompts, in the context of precise information about how to grow great vegetables.

The diary was one of six finalists for Practical Book of the Year at the Gardening Oscars in London, November 2017. The winner was our joint book No Dig Organic Home & Garden.