NO DIG GARDENING

If you don't dig gardening, then try not digging it. Gardening can be hard work enough without piling on the chores.  I don't dig.  Haven't done for years.  What do you think earthworms are for?  My garden, and containers too, are full of the things and they tunnel and dig away and turn and aerate the soil, and do the job they are supposed to do.  While they do their thing, I am free to prune, and trim, and tie back, and read and laze around doing nothing but enjoy the garden.  I don't compost either.  Not in the traditional sense.  I just chop whatever I can onto whatever space I can find (there isn't much bare soil in my garden) and I let worms and the rest of nature break down the cuttings and drag them into the earth.  Thanks bugs and grubs.

Fern fronds

I read that bracken (a kind of wild fern) is toxic, carcinogenic, and contains a chemical called ptaquiloside (RHS link).  I also read that it can be chopped up, composted, and/or used as a mulch around plants and will improve the soil.  Oh, yeah?  Whatever the case, last year I used my garden's dying fern fronds around the base of my James Grieve apple tree and at the base of my Polka raspberry canes (didn't bother chopping or composting). I've eaten three full bowlfuls of raspberries off the canes so far this year, but the apples are not yet ready to eat.  I'll let you know if they kill me off. 

Polka raspberries

Let's face it, breathing oxygen is also a toxic habit.  Seriously, look what oxygen does to iron!  Why do you think the scientists are always banging on about anti-oxidents like Vitamin C? and by the time the so-called experts have done with us all, worry worry worry, we will all be dying of stress-related cancer or heart attacks instead.

Read this (external link) and die laughing: Everything Gives You Cancer (Tim Dowling at The Guardian)





I've also pulled up a lot of the Cerastium tomentosum now that it has finished flowering, as it tends to try and move into neighbouring areas.  It's not invasive, just a bit pushy.  And I have piled that at the base of the apple tree this year.  The tree looks very cosy!

Dry ferns around base of James Grieve apple tree

Ptaquiloside (Science Direct.com)




In The Guardian online, Monty Don of Gardener's World advocates the use of bracken with no mention of its toxicity that I can see.