Welcome Charles Dowding & Stephanie Hafferty, authors of No Dig Organic Home & Garden

Please join me in welcoming Charles Dowding & Stephanie Hafferty, authors of No Dig Organic Home & Garden




Read the book review here!

Charles and Stephanie will be hanging out in the forums until Friday, June 23rd, answering questions and sharing their experiences with you all.

At the end of the week, we'll make a draw for 3 lucky winners to win a copy of their book! From now until Friday, all new posts in the organic forum are eligible to win.

To win, you must use a name that follows our naming policy and you must have your email set up to receive  the Daily-ish email.

The winners will be notified by email and must respond within 48 hours. Only the winners who respond within that timeframe will receive their book. Watch for a PM, and a notice in this thread announcing the winners!

Please do not put Charles' or Stephanie's name in the title of your thread. We like these threads to be accessible to everyone, and some people may not post their experiences if the thread is directed to the authors alone.

Posts in this thread won't count as an entry to win the book, but please say "Hi!" to Charles and Stephanie and make them feel welcome!

Welcome I am really looking forward to santa bringing your book to me

I really enjoy your youtube videos and look forward to your inputs this week.  

Welcome, Charles and Stephanie. I look forward to seeing your responses here on permies. And congratulations on the success of your book!

Welcome to you both, Charles and Stephanie. The cover of your book is beautiful! Can't wait to see what's inside.

WelcomeCharles and Stephanie.  After a year of reading my daily ish email I was inspired to join the Permies group.  All the best from Texas.

Welcome to you both! Is there a link, where I can purchase this book, please?

Carla Burke wrote:Is there a link, where I can purchase this book, please?

Click here to get to the page all about the book, with reviews.  The first post has several links to places you can buy the book from.

Welcome Charles & Stephanie! The book reviews sound great. Five years in Florida and I'm still tweaking my gardening methods and it looks like your book should be my next step!

Welcome! I love your videos, and can't wait to read the book.

How very exciting.  If you haven't seen the YouTube videos they are really interesting.  Lots of info on no dig beds, although i haven't got the method down.  Really interesting stuff on picking salad and herb bags and the technique used to wash them ready for packing.  Really inspiring to see how much can be achieved in such a small amount of land and lots of info on his composting system which is vital with the amount of produce grown.  Charles has a lovely soft voice too, so nice to listen to almost like being read a bedtime story 😁

Any advice for compacted clay soils and rainy climates?  

Kerry - it's probably best to start a new thread to ask the question.  Anywhere in the organic forum will do.  It will keep this thread tidy, make you eligible for the book draw, and also make it easier for anyone with a similar question to find the thread and any relevant answers.

Welcome from a newbie to all of this! Just getting started, but no dig sounds like something I need to check out, will go watch some videos tonight!

Leif

Hello everyone,
Welcome Charles and Stephanie, from the beginner of France.

A hearty welcome to Charles & Stephanie. We appreciate this opportunity greatly.

I pre-ordered this book and got it yesterday, so I haven't read a lot of it yet, but so far, it's awesome.  Simple, step by step directions with great pictures.  I love it.

Thanks all for your messages! I am happy at the response, that we are communicating through the book, because when I write I always imagine a reader right there and figuring it out. Especially beginners, though in many ways we are all beginners some of the time, trying new approaches.

To answer some of the questions:
Kerry's on compacted soil: we are asked this a lot and the answer depends on whether your soil is compact, or firm.
Compact soil is truly dense, smelly (sulphur!), sometimes grey and rusty orange in colour.
Firm soil is normal and good: it is hard in dry weather but there is a matrix of structure from not being cultivated. You can walk on no dig beds! The structure created by soil life is firm and stable.

It follows that success comes from encouraging soil life. We find that compost is the quickest means, but any organic matter works, and in dry climates it can be better to mulch with un-composted materials and let them protect the soil + conserve moisture, while they decompose. That is 'sheet composting'.
But this can encourage slugs, a big enemy of veg in our climate so compost works best in damp/rainy climates.

Kristi from Florida: let us know how you get on. I love the feedback from the States on many of my videos and had a mail from Ohio recently, where a woman has made a hugely successful no dig garden following the video outlines, and all her neighbours keep stopping to exclaim!

Steph and I are thrilled by the success and look forward to more feedback and questions.

The Charles Dowding channel on You Tube has a collection of topics to inform you more. ABout no dig, and about growing specific vegetables, with many time saving tips.

Thank you for all of the messages.

We are so pleased and excited by the lovely things people have been saying about the book

Hello, I am new to using forums.  I have been registered for a while under my farm name.  In the "naming policy", does that mean my user's name?  Or is that only considered when you make a post?  thank you for your help.

Doris - your name looks fine.  Welcome to the forums!  

Welcome Charles and Stephanie to this forum. I'm already a big fan of Charles's videos on view tube and have already purchased one of his books.  I look forward to reading his blogs on this forum when he posts them.
Regards to both and all.

Thanks Neil

Congratulations to our three winners

James Freyr
Kyle Neath
Chip Sanft

I'll be contacting you very soon to organise getting your books to you.

Woo Hoo!! I never win anything!! And I never posted a greeting in this thread, now I feel guilty. Charles & Stephanie, welcome to permies!! I actually have this book on my amazon wish list to purchase. Looking forward to reading it! Thanks!!