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Where food opens the door to conversations about craft, culture & tradition.
The Wild Kitchen Ep. 11 Charles Dowding
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Tiffany: [00:00:00] Today is Charles Dowding, a man who spent over 40 years revolutionizing the way people think about soil, food, and the relationship between the two. He grew up on a farm in Somerset, studied at Cambridge, and has since built a global following close to a million people through his books, YouTube channel, and his work at Homemakers, his garden and teaching space in Somerset.
His method is called no dig. His philosophy is disarmingly simple: stop fighting nature and start feeding it. Charles, welcome to the Wild Kitchen Podcast.
Charles: Thank you very much, Tiffany ...
Tiffany: you know, I've been following your, your work for quite some time. You've obviously been, been at, at it for many, many years.
I have a number of your books, and I just recently picked up these guys here. Um- Oh, good ... really been, really been enjoying them. I, I love how you, um, you take something that can seem [00:01:00] complex. Um, I've, I've read lots of books about composting, and I don't know why it always has to be so complicated, but reading your, especially this compost book, my goodness, it's like, it doesn't have to be so complicated.
You take brown material and green material, and you mix it up in a certain, certain way, and it, you know, you kinda stir it every now and then. It's, it's refreshing. Um, is there a reason, like did you see, did you see a, um, a need for that sort of communication with people on gardening? Yeah. Yeah? Uh, yeah,
Charles: totally.
Uh, because when I started out, I had the same impression as you were saying. Uh, sounds difficult, and yeah, more, more, more complex than it needs to be. I mean, that, that's what I found out since.
Tiffany: Mm.
Charles: So over the years, I've spent time stripping out the unnecessary jokes, the details you don't need, and discover really that most gardening work, for want of a [00:02:00] better word, is, is actually simple.
So my mission is to reveal that simplicity. And, um, in fact, someone made an interesting comment on YouTube. They said, "You're the opposite of most teachers who actually try to keep their, their pupils a little bit in the dark," 'cause that gives them more power, and that you- Mm ... you know, if you teach somebody everything that you know, they're gonna go off and do it, which is what I want, actually.
But, but the other thing, like, you know, if you're right, yeah, I think even maybe unconsciously, a lot of people are, either they don't understand the subject enough to teach it properly, I think that's a lot, what a lot of it is, actually. So therefore, they're just saying by rote what they've heard of before, and you get, you sort of rather complex, um, how to do things that have rules and principles that are not valid, actually.
Tiffany: Yeah, you're, it's, watching your videos, um, on, on YouTube, you're disarmingly humble. You just, you walk around your garden, and you talk about [00:03:00] stuff, and it doesn't get blown up into some, some big thing. You're like, "Hey, we're gonna look at some lettuce, and this is what we're doing." And, you know, anyone can do it, and it, yeah, I mean- Well,
Charles: that's exactly what I-
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: It's the feeling I wanna, I wanna give, and I can get that nice feedback. It's what I want. Um, they say, "Yeah, I, I, I..." Um, or later on they'll say, "Yeah, I've had great results do- doing these methods. You've simplified things that, that I didn't understand before, and, and now it's working for me, and it wasn't before."
So yeah, that's music to my ears when I hear that. I think I'm, I'm going on the right track.
Tiffany: Well, I guess, you know, at the end of the day, more people growing food is, is a good thing, and is a goal.
Charles: Yeah. At the moment, I would say it's so vital because we're, you know, the governments are pushing us to be more and more kind of slaves in the system, really, and if, if you can grow your own food, you have some degree of independence.
Not all, but it's, it's a vital part of it. [00:04:00] Um, it's freedom. You know? It's, it's, some people say it's the no dig revolution. I wouldn't go quite that far, but- I kind of know what they mean by that, when they say that.
Tiffany: Well, it's, I mean, m- maybe, maybe now's a great time to introduce, i- introduce people to the concept if they haven't heard of it, 'cause I've, I've talked to friends about it and they're like, "W- so what?
You just like put compost on the ground and you just plant things in it?" And they're like, "What? You don't have to dig?" Because it, it is a revolutionary concept that you... You know, I, I live in a farming area, and this time of year it's just tractors going back and forth over the fields, tilling and planting potatoes and disturbing the soil.
So m- maybe, I mean, obviously, uh, it's a-
Charles: Oh, you touched on two different things that I've-
Tiffany: Okay.
Charles: One is the difference between farming and gardening.
Tiffany: Mm.
Charles: And that's a big one, because I'm, I'm not claiming I have an answer to farmers who need to till 1,000 acres or what, you know, whatever. Um-
Tiffany: Yeah ... [00:05:00]
Charles: what I'm doing is gardening on a small scale.
Mm. But it's still for growing a lot of food. It's very intensive, and, and no dig is very simple, leaving the soil undisturbed and feeding the soil life with mulch of some kind. Personally, I prefer compost, but you know, compost is a mulch. Any, any organic matter on the surface is a mulch. So that's what, how you're feeding soil life, and that helps to keep the soil open, aerated, and full of goodness.
But to, to try and scale that one up to farms, like, you know- ... big fields of undulating thing, that they- Yeah ... they haven't got cardboard to smother the wheat or compost in that quantity. But also, they're not growing crops of such high value that we're growing. You know, vegetables are kind of specialist plants.
They've been highly bred, uh, to give a lot of delicious food, don't get me wrong there. But it's, um, something we, we have to devote ourselves to, you know, quite full time, whereas a farmer needs-- He's growing [00:06:00] lower value crops like soybeans and, um, wheat and barley, um, which we still need, but they're the kind of things that you can mechanize.
So that, that's why it's different. And I'm actually giving a talk at the Groundswell Festival this summer about exactly this, you know, land language. It, there's a lot of confusion 'cause people tend to say, you know, "No dig, why can't you no dig on a farm scale?" Well, no, you can't. Not when you're trying to grow beautiful, intensive vegetables.
Tiffany: And mostly what you're growing, you started really with a lot of salad greens and things like that.
Charles: Yeah. I mean, that's my, actually my main output in value terms. Probably about a third of what I sell is salad leaves, m- mixed salad, bags of mixed salad leaves, which are seasonal. So I'm not under any pressure to try and force something if it's out of season.
At the moment, the salad bags contain, uh, probably 90% lettuce actually, but lettuce is bang in season and the leaves are really sweet at the moment. And then to that we add, actually it's probably 80%. Um, bit of pea [00:07:00] shoots. So I, I grow a lot of peas for the shoots. We keep picking the shoots. Um, a bit of spinach, which actually will soon finish, and a little bit of chard for color and, um, some herbs like dill and, and basil and, um Coriander maybe.
So yeah, it's a, it's a range of flavors. Sorrel is another one. And through the season, if, if you look at my salad bag in, in, say, September, it'll be very different. There won't be much lettuce. There'll be more chicory, endive, Chinese cabbage, mustards, rocket, and so on. So I, personally, I love that flow, and I think my customers do, that they get a taste of every season as, as it comes along in the salad bag.
And that's my has been my main sell, 'cause it's, there's profit in that. Not a lot, I mean, just enough to pay the wage really. Uh, but vegetables is, is harder. And to, to make a, a living from growing and selling vegetables, it is, you know, that are not salad anyways, is, is actually pretty hard, I would say. If anyone's doing that, I, I take my hat off to you.
Tiffany: [00:08:00] Was there, was there a period of educating your customers on the seasonality of greens? I mean, people are used to going to the supermarket and buying a big romaine lettuce and, you know, uh, uh, to show people that fall, your greens are probably gonna be a little spicier or what- whatever it is.
Charles: Well, I think the main education comes from what you offer.
I mean, I, they're, they're, they're buying these bags of salad through the year and, and hopefully noticing that. 'Cause I don't do much direct selling. Uh, you know, that takes time, and that's the other thing. Time is so precious. So I'm selling wholesale to a, a big shop in Bruton, my local town, and also to a big pub in Backcomb, another local town.
And those two outlets between them take, uh, 80% of what I grow actually. Uh, that's just two, two harvests, well, two, four harvests a week, two for each, and a, a bit elsewhere, some for us. But I don't have contact with the customers. I can't, um, tell them
Tiffany: what- Oh, [00:09:00] okay. Yeah. That, that would be a whole other operation for you, I'm sure.
Charles: Yeah.
Tiffany: Okay. Uh-
Charles: I mean, I do, through my writing, I've, you know, I've got a newsletter with a lot of subscribers. I- Mm-hmm ... certainly
Tiffany: point out these things there. And I f- I find a lot of people say, you know, they look at people that are successfully growing large quantities of food, and they're like, "Oh, well, uh, it's because they have y- 10 acres, or they have 50 acres," or whatever it is.
Yeah. Your, your garden is not a massive space. It's, it's a third of an acre, is that right?
Charles: It's a half now. Half of an acre, which inc- that includes the paths as well as the beds. That's a total crop surface out of Homickers is just over an acre and a half. So yeah, it's really intensive. And from that last year, I don't know how this translates to Canadian dollars, but in pound sterling, it was 42,000 pounds worth of output from that half acre.
So, you know, I'm happy with that
Tiffany: If someone were to look at [00:10:00] feeding their family, I mean, I'm, I, from what I read in the, in the papers, uh, food costs are probably, uh, you guys are seeing the increases in England like we are seeing here in Canada, and people complain about the cost of food, but they're comparing a bag of, you know, pre-washed, grown somewhere far away.
Yeah. Of course that's expensive. E- but people have the ability and they have the power to grow food in their own space, as, as limited as it is.
Charles: That's where no-dig is so good, because you can s- easily scale up or scale down, and you can scale down from what I'm doing to, I've got one patch where I, I do trials for it, so I'm recording the harvest.
And this one, um, the total area is 63 square meters, roughly, and last year that gave just under, just over 600 kilograms of food.
Tiffany: My God. So
Charles: it's nearly 10 kilograms per square meter, and if you think how many kilograms you need in a year-
Tiffany: Mm ...
Charles: and that includes things like squash, potatoes, um, leeks, uh, spinach, [00:11:00] lettuce, um, salads, onions, you know, quite a wide range of, of produce.
And in fact, the potatoes that we harvested from there last July- We're still eating, we had some for lunch today. That, that's in late May. So, you know, I, I'm talking about food and the squash actually. I've still got some of them. So it's, it's certainly possible, I would say, on, on a, not a big area, you might be surprised how small even, uh, if you get organized about it.
And it's actually much more efficient to do that, to crop a smaller area very intensively and with repeat cropping of the same space in the same year, rather than have a bigger area that actually takes more work to maintain. You know, so you've got to keep it weeded and everything like that. So I'm concentrating my efforts on a small space and, and, and like to teach about that.
Tiffany: And you're doing this all without herbicides and pesticides and- Oh, absolutely ... and all the sprays. It's all organic.
Charles: Oh, g- yeah. I mean, I'm not organic certified because it's too many hoops to jump through. I don't have time and it, it costs £500 a year. But I don't have the [00:12:00] need either really, 'cause my customers kind of know what I'm doing and, uh, they can come and have a look at the garden anytime.
I have two open days a year. But yeah, I mean, the thing, that's the beauty of no-dig. You, you have fewer weeds, so it's certainly no need for herbicides. We, we hoe and handweed a bit. And then, um, you know, it doesn't take long though. Um, plants are healthier, so I actually have suffered very few pests. Uh, there, there's one product I use, which is for caterpillars on brassica leaves, and it's Bacillus thuringiensis, which was discovered by Louis Pasteur in 1877, I think.
And it's just a soil bacteria. Hmm. So, you know, there's, there's no harm in that one. But I find it, it's a big saving in terms of not having caterpillar damage, uh, only between July and October, and only on the brassicas. So everything else, I'm, you know, just doing naturally. I don't use any slug pellets and, um, just nothing.
Tiffany: And you're using a lot of, uh, fabric and things like that over top of the plants to protect as well as to- Yeah, covers.
Charles: Covers are really useful, both [00:13:00] initially, like in the spring that's really just passed now, um, there's cover we call fleece. I don't know, it might be called remay or, or something like that.
Tiffany: Um- I think we say fleece too, yeah.
Charles: Yeah, okay. So it's, it's really light and it, I just put it directly on plants and, um, they push it up. What it does is it keeps that early warmth in. And then we're switching now where, where the, the vegetables need it to mesh, which is a more, uh, little squares of nylon, uh, to keep out, for example, carrot root fly and cabbage root fly.
Uh, anything else, but, um, aphids maybe.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: So yeah, covers are useful.
Tiffany: One of the things, uh, with your work is that you're meticulous about recording things. It's-
Charles: Hmm ...
Tiffany: for someone that makes it simple, uh, there is a sci- like a accessible scientific edge to your work. Like you, you'll have one, uh, you know, control that is a dig garden and then a no-dig and you compare it and [00:14:00] it's, it-
Charles: So
Tiffany: it's, you, you very nicely f- balance that of like, this is what I'm doing and it's not a, you know, published scientific study or anything like that, but you are showing that your, your work you're doing is much more effective.
Charles: Yeah. I mean, I would never claim to be scientific in the modern sense where you need random replicated, lots of ground and, um, peer review studies, all that kind of thing. Uh, I can't do that f- 'cause I'm not a research station. But yeah, I've got these two beds. One is dig, one is no dig, and they receive the same amount of compost, and they have exactly the same plantings.
So the only difference is one is dig and one is no dig. We dig it, the dig bed once a year in December usually, put the compost in a trench, uh, and keep digging that over. So the compost is buried or incorporated to about six to eight inches up to, um, 15, 20 centimeters. Uh, whereas on the no [00:15:00] dig bed, takes a lot less time than that.
Just simply spread the compost on top. So already you have a big time saving, and then the takeaway from that in terms of results, I weigh all the harvest, uh, that the no dig bed over 13 years now is 11% ahead in terms of harvest. Every year it gives more. You know, this year we, it started on the same vein.
We've had 10 and a half kilos from the no dig bed, seven and a half kilos from the dig bed. Uh, that's up to the end of May. Things like early spinach and lettuce and radish and turnip. So I've just seen that same pattern, but I, I'm keen to keep it going 'cause it, l- I think there's value in the long-term trial.
Uh, partly 'cause also we've had the soil analyzed for organic matter content or carbon content I should say, to be precise. And so this guy took away two samples and he said, "Wow." He said, "They're both really high." Uh, the no dig bed, sorry, the dig bed is 14% carbon Uh, which is way more than most [00:16:00] agricultural soils and that- Yeah.
goes back to my point about, you know, this is not farming, this is intensive gardening.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: And the no-dig bed is 18%. So somewhere along the road, the dig bed has lost 4% of its organic matter or carbon, and I can only think it's during the process of cultivation, turning the soil up and exposing soil to air, and then some of the carbon, the organic matter, meets the oxygen in the air and turns to CO2 and escapes.
So, you know, that, that's a big loss to soil 'cause carbon is the building block of fertility, and to have 4% less for doing all the extra work, it's like-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
Charles: ah, no dig, no brainer, really.
Tiffany: Yeah. Sorry.
Charles: I actually had a, the, I had my book reviewed. I was really chuffed. The, don't know if you've heard of the Financial Times.
Tiffany: Yep.
Charles: And it's the last place I'd have thought would be reviewing my book, uh, 'cause it's all about economics and markets and all that kind of thing. Yeah. But they do have a gardening [00:17:00] section on a Saturday, and they reviewed my book, and that was the headline, No Dig, No Brainer.
Tiffany: Really?
Charles: Uh,
Tiffany: yeah. That's amazing.
Charles: Really pleased.
Tiffany: Well, I, it's, I mean, it's all over the place. People talk about, uh, sequestering carbon in soil and, and- Yeah ... you know, cattle and, uh, all these, all these conversations about, about carbon and It just seems like you're, you're, y- you've developed a technique that, uh, grows more food, builds the soil.
Uh, is, is there any, any proof that the vegetables growing in that soil i- are better for you, a higher nutritional content? Have you, have you had any of that looked at?
Charles: No. I'd love to know that. Yeah. It's, it's a hard one though to measure, I feel. Yeah. Because, you know, we, we have so little understanding, I reckon, of, of our own digestion process and, and how well we can handle all these different, say, nutrients in food and, and the balance of nutrients.
It's not only about there's, uh, [00:18:00] X amount of copper and Z amount of zinc, you know, but how they relate to each other, what form they're in. And I'm pretty suspicious of test results, to be honest. I've had my soil tested a few times, and once, uh, about 10 years ago, the result came back. They were looking at the biology, and they said, "Your soil is low in fungi.
That needs correcting." I just said, "Well, that can't be right." And I was looking at these super healthy plants. Yeah. You know? So I don't know where they got that from.
Tiffany: Huh.
Charles: But I would say what, what... Like, for example, we, we get pointers. So the two trial beds I mentioned, we harvest lettuce every week, and the lettuce plants look quite similar.
You think, "Well, the harvest will surely be about the same." But from the no-dig bed, it weighs more, and it's like the leaves are slightly denser. So then you think, "Well, you know, that's probably an indication of more nutrition, that there's less water. It's more, uh, more dry matter in there." Uh- Hmm ... from, from what I can tell anyway.
Um, you know, we got little pointers like that anyway, um-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
Charles: that are [00:19:00] interesting.
Tiffany: Oh, that's really interesting. Now, um, I read that you, you grew up on a dairy farm? Uh, you had no interest in, in continuing that. You went off to school. Your parents didn't want you to get into farming, and then somehow you, you came, you came back to it.
Was that , was that... Did you always kinda wanna stay in, in that world or, or did you have intentions to go off and do something- I- ... with your geography degree?
Charles: No, I didn't. No, actually. I, I was all over the place really as a late teenager, um, up to the age of about 20. Uh, all I knew was I didn't want to farm, and I luckily had an older brother who could take on the farm from my father.
And so, you know, I was in a great position. I, I was kind of a free agent you could say. And my father hoped that I'd maybe join the Navy or become a politician or something. Um- Yeah ... I was pretty bright. You know, I went to Cambridge and I had the possibility of doing that. But what I saw at Cambridge University made me think, "Oh, I do not wanna be in this corporate world."
It wasn't my scene. And I loved being outside, [00:20:00] and so I was trying to work out a way of, you know, combining an outdoor life with, on the, on the land, uh, without using machinery or without big cows that they didn't appeal to me either. And then I discovered market gardening, organic market gardening. I got really interested in organic when I was about 20, became a vegetarian as well, and it all kind of tied together suddenly.
That was 1981, and 1982 I started, and ever since then I've been doing it, but in different locations actually. But it's been my life's work
Tiffany: And your parents, I'm assuming, we- were, were okay with, with you coming back into the fold?
Charles: They, they thought it was a rather odd thing to do. Uh, but, uh, 'cause I was doing it all by hand.
So-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
Charles: in 1982/3, I, I made, I created beds, raised beds on one and a half acres. I was doing it large scale in those days, um, 'cause I, I didn't have the high value salad, uh, crops to fall back on. I needed volume. And, um, my father was, was just thought I was, it was all a bit crazy, but he [00:21:00] didn't say too much.
He was quite a quiet man. Uh, but he did, and he never said much to me actually. He, he said to my older brother after my first year, he said, "Well, that seems to be working." You know? High praise indeed.
Tiffany: Yeah, I was gonna say, high praise.
Charles: Yeah. And, and, you know, I, I l- I was vegetarian. I'm not a strict vegetarian now, but I do eat mostly vegetables, but in the '80s I, I was just vegetarian.
Uh, I was eating, uh, dairy produce from the farm. Um, but, but that also gave me an incentive because, you know, you wanna, you wanna g- I wanna grow the food I, I eat. Yeah. And I can see the health and vigor of these, these lovely plants, so that, that fueled my desire and ambition as well.
Tiffany: And you, you were, I, I don't know if the first, I, but y- certainly, like way, way w- like possibly decades ahead of other places where I've seen it, the, um, we call it CSA, the, uh, community supported agriculture, the- Yes, so-
sort of box system. So- Yeah ... how did, uh, like how did that come to you to, to, to [00:22:00] totally, 'cause that totally flips the script on- Well, you know- ... how farmers do things ... I wouldn't want to
Charles: be the first person, because in 1983, I wasn't sure how I was gonna sell my produce in my first year, '83, and I thought to, I put a sign up in the local, um, town, Castle Cary, saying, "If anybody would like a selection of seasonal produce, whatever I've got, uh, every week-
Tiffany: Mm
Charles: I'll supply it."
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: And, and that concept was a new one. Yeah. And I actually got six people signed up for that.
Tiffany: That's amazing.
Charles: And with every year that passed, the, the numbers increased. It was something like 10 in the second year. But I was still selling a lot wholesale to London outlets, and a van would come twice a week to collect, for example.
'Cause by 1986, I had seven and a half acres. It was a quite big market garden, all no-dig. And by 1988, I was doing about 100 boxes a week. So yeah, that, that was pretty new, and then quite a few people saw the potential of that and took it on themselves, which was delightful. You know, it's not nothing like being copied.
That's a sincere form of [00:23:00] flattery, as people say. And that ha- that really kicked off, I think, the box movement, and then you got Riverford and all of that as well, which is still going strong, and they do something like 55,000 a week now. A big fleet of lorries. So yeah, it's, it's a durable way, successful way of selling vegetables.
Tiffany: You do that, and then you think, "I'm gonna start smuggling emeralds."
Charles: Sorry, start one
Tiffany: You wanna start smuggling emeralds.
Charles: Oh, golly, that. Well, yeah, I mean, I have had a bit of a colorful life in that way. Because-
Tiffany: What, what drove you to, to go to Africa?
Charles: Uh, I mean, just to give the background to that, I have to say- Yeah
my father died in 1998. He, he was very late marrying. He was 82 when I was, like, 28, and that's when he died, that age. And, um, he left me some money. And I, I was finding the market garden in my late 20s actually quite a slog for not earning a huge amount, and I, I bit the bullet or [00:24:00] t- t- ... to take this money and, um, took some time out.
I found some people who wanted to look after the farm.
Tiffany: Mm.
Charles: And I just gave it to them. I said, "Just do it. Look after it and, and see what you can earn, 'cause I know it's not easy to make money." And, and I went to Africa actually. I, I, I'd met an organic grower in, uh, '89 who had an organic holding, but he'd been, believe it or not, he'd been a minister- Mm
in Kenneth Kaunda's government in Zambia, and he therefore had contacts in Zambia, and he said to me, "You know, you can go out there. Go, go and show them what, what you can do." Yeah. He thought it would help them. So I said, "Okay," and got on the plane, uh, it was something like March 19, February 1991, and even while I was on the plane, believe it or not, the Kenneth Kaunda lost the election.
So I was turning up in Zambia with all the wrong letters of introduction- Oh, no ... because they were from the deposed prime minister, and was viewed with some suspicion. I actually struggled to [00:25:00] find any... You know, I wanted to do something. I, I, I want to do some gardening here and show you what I can do, and I, I found a remote village in southern province of Zambia, not far from Livingstone Falls, and, um, a school, a very friendly school master, and he said, "Yeah, you can make our school a garden," and so I set to, and I did it for about two months, and it was shaping up nicely.
And then I got a message from the district commissioner, who's, like, middle rank, rank of bureaucracy there.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: And I thought, "Well, that's nice." He didn't say why he wanted to see me, just said he wants to see me. So I got on my bike, which is how I got to this remote village, and actually left quite a few of my things there, 'cause I thought I was just gonna go and maybe be congratulated, you know, saying, "Hey-"
Mr. Dolby, you're doing a great job." Uh, instead of that, when I got into his office, it, there were three of them, and they're looking very severe.
Tiffany: Oh,
Charles: dear. And they said, "So what are you doing there?" And I said, "Well, I'm making a garden." They said, "No, you're not. You're smuggling emeralds." And I said, "What are you talking about?"
And they... I didn't realize, but that village I'd happened to end up [00:26:00] in was near to an emerald mine in Zambia, and, um, they put two and three together, you could say. And so basically kicked me out of the country. I had to leave pretty quick.
Tiffany: Oh,
Charles: my gosh. Um, but Mervin, the guy who set me up there, found me somewhere to go in Kenya.
So I had actually then had two months in Kenya, in, up in Kitale, which is near Uganda, and that, that was a really good experience, and I, I learned, I learned a lot there. And my, and my takeaway from my time in Africa was actually it's pretty arrogant to go there and think you can teach them in their own country.
Uh, I learned more from them And I, I, I learned that my place was in Europe actually, so that helped sort of settle that wanderlust that I-
Tiffany: Yes, the, the European predicament.
Charles: Yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah. So I, I've, I've noticed that you've, you've had a number of gardens, challenging soils. Was that a, was that an intentional choice or you just sort of stumbled into- Well,
Charles: for another part of the long story.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: I, I ended up on a farm in France, 'cause I had enough money to buy a small farm, and it [00:27:00] was 40 acres. I bought it for £40,000.
Tiffany: Wow.
Charles: Which is really not a lot looking back on it. Yeah. And that had a house and barns and everything. But it was, yeah, horrible soil.
Tiffany: Mm.
Charles: And that's one reason it was so cheap, but I didn't realize that at the time.
Uh, it was what the local farmers called houblon, which is white clay, and soggy in winter, rock hard in summer. But believe it or not, I, I grew lovely vegetables there, and, uh, no-dig worked really well, and this is where I was really starting-- I was no-dig from the beginning in 1982, but I wasn't really talking about it, 'cause there wasn't much interest in soil in those days.
It was more interested in the fact that I was organic, so that's what I used to promote. And I got certified bio in France and started selling vegetables in the local market, and they were, proved really popular, and I could sell them for more money. And the, in fact, the, the local farmers were quite impressed and w-within about 10 years, most of them had gone bio as well from seeing that.
And lovely old heirloom tomatoes and that kind of thing, enormous sweet fruit, but very thin skin, so they couldn't be sold in supermarket 'cause they wouldn't travel. But in a [00:28:00] local market, you know, that's what markets should be selling. Absolutely. Sort of things that supermarkets can't handle. But- Yeah
there's a lot of vegetables like that. So that was six years of my life there, and I got married there, had children, and then decided to move back to the UK.
Tiffany: Wow. And you talk about, uh, challenges dealing with the supermarkets and selling to the supermarkets. Yeah. Uh, was it, was it just, like, strict, strict requirements on, like, like you say, well, you talked about tomatoes, right?
Like, you need to have tomatoes that last a week in the, in the refrigerator and turn to mush so people don't care and buy them, or what were you dealing with? Yeah.
Charles: It is that. It's all the things the customer really doesn't want actually- Yeah ... but it's meeting their criteria and of, of what's sellable and also looks nice.
You know, I had two experiences in the '80s of sending off big van loads, you know, like serious quantities of lettuce in one case, which they'd been taking for several weeks already. And then suddenly I got a message from them saying, "Oh, we had to throw all the last lot of lettuce away 'cause we [00:29:00] found slugs."
And, um, at that time this was head lettuce, and I always had a few slugs in my head lettuce, which is why I struggled to sell it to chefs 'cause they, they didn't like slugs either. But, you know, it had been working. And I think what it was, they, they, they'd overbought, you know? But then with all the whipped hand, I realized how powerless I was as a grower in the face of that kind of response.
And, you know, all that was thrown away, zero money for all the work we put into it. And then the second one happened, which was leaks. And again, strict criteria. One was the length of the leak had to be no less than something and no more than something else. And the phone call I got at that time was, "Oh, your leaks were too long.
We threw the whole lot away." You know, that kind of thing.
Tiffany: Oh, my
Charles: God. And, um, no, I decided, right, that's it. No more supermarket. I can't afford this. And, and that's gave me added fuel to my fire of doing more boxes and doing a local market in Castle Cary, in fact. This is back in '89. And I had to really fight to get my pitch there because local markets in those days in the UK were not a thing.
Mm. Uh, there's [00:30:00] become more of it now, and the local shopkeepers were not that happy about it 'cause they felt it was competition. Then what they'd noticed was, wow, it pulled people into the town. So actually they, they, they thawed out o- once they realized that. And, you know, I think that's the thing about markets, isn't it?
It, it brings the town to life on market day, and you get lots of people coming
Tiffany: in. Ab- absolutely. It's, we've got one in, in our town here, and- It's, it's incredible. It- you're not e- only bringing together people in the community to, to buy local things, but you're bringing other people outside of the community that, that aren't aware of your town and, and all the great things in it, and it's, it's a massive event, and it's, it's grown like crazy.
It's, it's incredible to see people get on board and, and get excited about this stuff. And, and then they see, like, they buy your, your tomato with the thin skin, and they're like, "Well, I don't wanna eat this garbage that's grown in a hothouse in Mexico anymore because it doesn't taste good." And it- Yeah ... it raises their expectations and, and what they're willing to put up with.
And I [00:31:00] think it's, it's nice to see people are finally getting, getting to the point where they are okay not eating strawberries 12 months of the year. It, it, like, it warms my heart to see people, "I'm not gonna buy that. That's garbage. Why am I spending a premium for something that's gonna taste terrible?
I'm gonna wait until June, and it's gonna be the best thing I'm gonna eat, and I'm gonna get really excited about that." It's, it's really nice to see.
Charles: So right. I mean, going with the season has so many benefits like that. Like- Mm ... it, just today, funnily enough, I saw the first strawberry ripe in my garden.
Yeah. And obviously I don't eat them. I haven't eaten a strawberry since last July. Yeah. And wow, I'm so excited to actually try that. I hope a bird doesn't eat it before I get there, but- Yeah, it's, it's that level of, of excitement almost Yeah ... with it that you miss out if you're just buying, ah, 12 months of the year everything.
And tomatoes, I so look forward to the first tomatoes- Oh, yeah ... 'cause although we preserve some and dry them over the winter, the, it's not the same as a fresh one.
Tiffany: No, it's... And, and you also learn to appreciate the, you know, the [00:32:00] dried tomato in, in the winter because of the promise and expectation of that fresh, warm tomato out of the garden in, in August.
Charles: It's a memory. Yeah. It's certainly a, a lovely memory.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about eating fava beans, and when I read it, I smiled because I remember I didn't grow up eating fava beans. Uh, I remember the first time I had one, and it was, like something clicked in my brain, and I was like, "This- This, this is amazing because this is terrible.
I, I shouldn't say it's terrible. It's a different experience having it dried, or those big, starchy, overgrown dried fava beans. Having a fresh fava bean popped out of the pod, it's, it, it was amazing. Like, it just... I, I, I'm interested to hear, hear your experience and what that was for you.
Charles: Well, that was when I was only about 15, and it was my first conscious a- awareness of the beautiful flavor of vegetables.
My mother- Mm ... cooked the lunch every day. For some reason, the, um, it just, something clicked in my brain at that point. She, she served fava [00:33:00] beans, we call them broad beans, quite often with the lunch. Uh, but these, maybe that day they were super fresh from the pod or something. You know, she, she grew some vegetables in the garden.
And I just remember it. I still remember it now. The flavor's a great way to make, uh, memories, isn't it? So many kind of like memories we have are related to scent and flavor. And so that, when, once that dawned on me, I thought, "Right, I've got to check this out. I've got to explore vegetables more." And I still get excited when the first ones, the first beans come, the fava beans, and it will be in about a week now.
I can't wait. I'll cook them with a little bit of mince, serve them with perhaps a bit of butter, and it's, it's a delicacy, isn't it? It's, it's like caviar, uh, truly.
Tiffany: It, I, it is. It's funny, I, growing up, summer was always my favorite as a kid. You run around in summer, you don't have school, and, uh, it's, I mean, it's probably an obvious choice for a lot of kids, but as I got older, it's spring, and it's the promise of all these new, fresh things going.
And I get... Like, I, I've got [00:34:00] asparagus growing in my garden. We've got wild asparagus that grows near us, and going out and picking the fresh asparagus and- Yeah ... the peas in the garden, and it's just Because it's so fleeting, because s- some of these early spring vegetables are, if you put them in your fridge for a week, they're not gonna be the same thing.
It's like you go and you pick it, and you immediately- Yeah.
Charles: Interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Um, this week I've h- I had first harvest for selling of carrots, this is outdoor grown carrots- Mm ... and also of beetroot, and of Florence fennel, and of kohlrabi. Mm. And what a selection of flavors in that lot. Um- Yeah, I
Tiffany: bet
Charles: brilliant, because it's the first ones, I think, they sort, they have, almost taste better.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: And, uh, yeah, I, I just love it, 'cause we're going forwards now. We'll have one after the other, like next week it could be the first peas, and, and then there'll be some, um, God, trying to think what will come next.
Maybe, um, well, peas of all kinds, including sugar peas. Um- Nice ... broccoli, Calabrese, uh, cauliflower, uh, [00:35:00] cabbage, the new spring cabbage, uh, after we've had the winter cabbage. So yeah, lots of excitement, uh, this time of year.
Tiffany: Yeah, it's great, and it's, it's neat to see, my, I've got kids, and my son especially was not a vegetable eater.
And at some point I'm like, "I gotta get this kid to get more excited about vegetables." And what, what did it was getting him to grow his own. Growing his own peas and potatoes for him for some reason was like, like I would take him out to the potato farm, and we'd buy the seed potatoes, and he'd pick out all the ones he wanted, and he'd have- Good
his own plot, and-
Charles: Brilliant.
Tiffany: Yeah. No, it's just-
Charles: Yeah. Well, I think that we're working quite a bit with children, and, um, I run a newsletter called Future Gardeners.
Tiffany: Mm.
Charles: So I wanna encourage as many children as possible to get into this. I feel that if, if we're gonna rescue the world from the mess we're in- It's not gonna happen through governments doing something, 'cause they never do, but we, we, we gotta do it and take the future into our own hands.
And so encouraging children, to me, is, is a no-brainer again. So, [00:36:00] um, I'm working on it, and we got this future garden, it's useless. So children love no-dig, 'cause it is a lot easier for them. They have much less of weeding chore.
Tiffany: Mm-hmm.
Charles: It's more enjoyable. And I've noticed how things like potatoes, as you say, the, because there's that element of surprise, and you look at the leaves and there's nothing particularly remarkable.
But once you grasp them, and especially with no-dig, you don't really need to dig them out. So get your hand around all the stalks or stems at the same time and pull it up gently. And whoa, you've got this bounty there. That's- And, and children definitely respond to that. And also carrots I've noticed, because again, or me too, you know, you don't really know what carrot is exactly there until you pull it.
And that element of mostly pleasant surprise- ... I just adore it. And of course, the flavor. When a carrot is fresh, um, you know, as you know, maybe some of your listeners don't, if, if you've never grown a carrot and tasted it fresh from the ground, I'd urge you to do that. Mm. And even if you haven't got a garden, you can, because you could grow them in containers.
Uh, so I sowed in a, in, in my greenhouse. I had a container and sowed carrots [00:37:00] in February, actually this year, and we've just finished harvesting them already. So that's a nice early harvest of... But the flavor and, and once, once you've tasted that, a bit like you were saying, uh, the people with their new potatoes and things, you realize there's no going back.
Tiffany: No.
Charles: Supermarket stuff doesn't taste the same.
Tiffany: No, it, it, it kind of, it sets your ex- expectation so much higher, 'cause you know what- Yeah ... what it should, it, or could taste like. I mean, in our house, uh, I grow peas. I grow a lot of peas, and we almost never eat cooked peas, because they don't ever leave the garden.
Yeah. You, everyone just, like, eats it right out of the garden. Yeah. 'Cause they're so unbelievably good. It's just, you just-
Charles: Yeah ...
Tiffany: get excited about
Charles: them. Super fresh at that moment. But there's another thing also, which is less obvious, and this is what I like for children, is the microbes. And the new research pointing out or discovering how the soil biome, as we call it, if you think of biome as collection of microbes, uh, some of your listeners might not know that word, but it's, it's, it's a, [00:38:00] yeah, it's, it's an assembly of whatever microbes, microbes meaning bacteria, um, and all the, all the sort of tiny stuff, protozoa, uh, even nematodes, what- whatever it might be, um, tiny in size, that's in your gut and also in your soil, the...
So you call it the, the collection biome. So the soil biome collection of microbes is amazingly similar to the gut biome So when you pick super healthy produce, particularly from no-dig soil, I reckon, uh, you're, you're automatically getting fantastic collection of microbes that help your digestion. And this hasn't really been analyzed a lot and, and therefore obviously not a lot, especially in scientific terms.
It's, it's more a qualitative assessment and I would say from my experience, this really works. And, and from the experience of others too, people who have digestion problems, eating some freshly harvested, um, vegetables from healthy soil really can help sort it out. And there is now work being done on this, and I, I [00:39:00] think it's really exciting because if we can get more data, um, you know, that can persuade skeptical people or also be good for children, they could learn it in school, that kind of thing, about the wonderful connections between healthy soil and healthy food.
In fact, the very first sign I put up on my market garden in 1982 was, "Health from the land," because that's how I saw it even then. And I was following some of the early pioneers of the Soil Association in the 1940s, 'cause they had a much clearer view of this than the Soil Association when I was starting out in the '80s, and they talked a lot about mycorrhizal fungi and the, the value of super fresh food growing your own.
They called it compost growing as well. The word organic wasn't existing then. That appeared in the 1960s, and it became a kind of corrupted word because it came to mean absence of synthetic chemicals, which is totally not the same as healthy compost-grown food. And when I started out, you know, as I was sym-symbol holder of Soil [00:40:00] Association, and they didn't think anything of the soil being rotavated four times a year.
And it had to be because otherwise, um, the growers weren't-- who were, you know, the more you rotavate, the more weeds you get. There's no doubt about that. We obviously, you know, chickweed follows the rotavator. And so these guys were rotavating, then they had to rotate it again, so, so many weeds and it's the only way they could control it and The Soil Association didn't mind that, and I, at the time I felt this is very odd because they should be.
You know, th- this, this soil is, is really precious and, and I was the only no-dig grower. But anyway, I just carried on quietly doing my thing. But I did notice I got many fewer weeds. I didn't, I couldn't be sure at the time that it was from no-dig, but I am now, and there's, you know, massive body of evidence backing that up.
So that's why I'm, I'm grateful to have done it for so long. I didn't talk about no-dig back in the '80s and '90s, even noughties, only quite more recently. But the, the movement of interest in soil lately especially ha- is really exciting, and I, I love it on social media talking about no-dig and soil [00:41:00] biome and microbes and all that.
People are really responsive and, and love it, and, and I think that's a fantastic way of getting people on board to, to actually really wanting to grow their own food, 'cause they c- not only
the flavor but the microbes.
Tiffany: It's, it's nice people are a little bit less fearful of looking at dirt as a germ. Ah, yeah. And something that's harmful for them too, is like-
Charles: Yeah ...
Tiffany: you know, getting your hands in the dirt and, and like, if you pick a, that carrot, you just, I don't know. I like, I've always just wiped it off on my pants and just eat it, right?
Yeah, sure. Like, I don't care. I'm not gonna, and-
Charles: Yeah ...
Tiffany: I don't get sick from stuff like that. I feel like I've got a bit of an iron gut Do you, I, and I, I- No ... I attribute it to that
Charles: It's, it's because you've got the collection of microbes in there. Mm. And I've noticed it with, if people are not used to this, you do need to be a bit careful at first, 'cause you haven't got the gut microbes to handle the soil microbes, you could say.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: So if, if you're starting to eat fresh produce, um, you know, do wash it perhaps more than I would. But as [00:42:00] time goes on, you'll find you, you can tolerate more and, and you, you, you're more healthy for it. You, uh, your digestion becomes much stronger. Uh, mine is, is incredible actually. I wouldn't call it iron gut, but it's just-
really healthy. And, and it, I can eat anything actually, pretty much. I probably shouldn't say that to touch wood, but you know what I mean.
Tiffany: Uh, I, I, I will tell people I, I eat anything. I, I celebrate the fact of, I, I- Yeah ... I like to test my, uh, I like to test my system and keep it on its toes.
Charles: Yeah, absolutely.
And- And there is, there has been a fear, hasn't there, until recently of, you know, bacteria.
Tiffany: Mm-hmm.
Charles: It, it was a dirty word. Uh, now, you know, we're starting to realize, well, actually, for example, well, 99% of bacteria are beneficial actually.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: And then you've got bacteria that help plants to find nutrients and moisture through a process called rhizophagy.
It was only discovered 16 years ago, so you know, that's... It's an ally of the whole mycorrhizal network, which is more well-known, the, the fungal, fungi, mycelia in the soil finding food [00:43:00] for plants. And both of these networks are, they're, you know, in undisturbed no-dig soil, they're much stronger. So again, this is evidence now why, why it works better.
Tiffany: Yeah. So,
Charles: yeah. I, that's why I've enjoyed the last 10 years or so, 'cause it's, it's been kind of vindicating a bit what I've been doing all along, and explaining my successes, you could say. It, you know, it's nice to have a reason.
Tiffany: The concept of, of spreading mulch on the soil, that, that's something that, was it Ruth, Ruth Stout-
Charles: Yes
Tiffany: uh, first, first suggested that. Now, I, I have a practice in, in the fall I always lay, I do straw on top of my, all of my beds. And I, I talked to a local garden shop and they advised against it strongly and told me that's the dumbest thing that I could possibly do, 'cause it's just gonna ... You know, why would I do that?
That's, that's silly. You don't need to do anything. And I, I was like, "No, I'm not, I'm not gonna listen to you. I'm just gonna do it." It's been, it's been massive. It's, it's been so amazing [00:44:00] for my soil, and, um- But are you,
Charles: you're not getting slugs then?
Tiffany: No, and I don't, I, I don't understand why I don't, because I'm in Vancouver.
I live in a pretty, you know, it's a temperate rainforest. For whatever reason, in my garden, I don't get slugs.
Charles: It, it could be because you, you're no dig. You're not tilling, I'm guessing.
Tiffany: Yeah. No, that's correct.
Charles: So therefore, you've got, you have got better fauna, like the ground beetles, 'cause you haven't disturbed them, and they eat slug eggs.
So it could be to do with that, you know, which you wouldn't get if you were digging. But I, I, here I have found mulches of hay or straw. Uh, I mean, I, I'm intrigued by that, 'cause our climate, I think, is equally damp as yours.
Tiffany: But- Yeah, it's, it's very wet here.
Charles: Yeah. I, I just get, uh, what I want as a grower is close to 100% success with every sowing and planting and no damage, 'cause otherwise it becomes unprofitable and not feasible.
So I'm sowing carrots in the very early spring, and they all come up 'cause I've got a very low population of [00:45:00] slugs. Not through using any pellets or anything, just 'cause it is low, and through, like, the ground beetles I mentioned, all that, that kind of thing. But also not giving them happy times, so for me, that's, that's the key one.
Um, people look at my garden in, in the late winter and they say, "Well, you're not using mulch." And I say, "I am, but it's, it's compost."
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: So yeah, different mulches. Well, that, that's a good, good one. Interesting.
Tiffany: I don't actively make my own compost and, and the reason I don't is because I live very close to the water, and we have, the town I live in, there's a pretty bad rat problem, and I've always, uh, my husband specifically is like, "No, we can't have a compost 'cause the rats are gonna be here."
But I don't know. After reading your book- Sure ... I, I think I need to sit down with him and have a good long conversation and, uh,
Charles: All right.
Tiffany: It changes my- But- 'Cause I'm buying my own. I haven't been making my own, so.
Charles: You, you've got a system that works, so you know- Yeah ...
Tiffany: no
Charles: reason not to change it. What I found, though, is I read Ruth Stout's book in 1980, I think, and, uh, [00:46:00] before I started, and I thought, "Well, this really makes sense."
And I then bought a load of old hay to spread as the mulch in my first autumn. And the following spring, most of what I planted got eaten by slugs. So, you know, it just made me think, oh, her, her system, good though it is in Connecticut, it's a much drier climate there than in the UK. So that's a bit the, the risk of moving things, you know, good ideas from, in one place is not always good in another.
Tiffany: Yeah. I have a lot of wood lice
Charles: Ah, right, okay. Yeah
Tiffany: Yeah
Charles: They can be quite a pest, can't they?
Tiffany: Yeah, they sure can.
Charles: That could be related to the straw. I mean- Yeah ... I would say with compost, you, you know, you get a pretty nice balance. There's, there's always insects. There's, there's a bit of everything, but nothing is too out of balance, and that does make growing a lot easier 'cause I, like I say, I don't really suffer losses- Yeah
much with big topping.
Tiffany: Um, well, i- well, is, is there, is there anything that you were specifically interested in chatting about? Anything you, you think the, uh, the listeners should know?
Charles: Yeah. [00:47:00] Um, I would call it myths and misconceptions. I've actually written a book with that title because I see people s- suffering and doing extra work for no reason because of common misunderstandings.
How have these developed? Uh, it's kind of propaganda, but not so explicit as that It's, it's very simply, if, if something is said often enough, it becomes commonly believed. And one is about, I just featured it in a reel on Instagram actually, that you shouldn't plant tomatoes when, if the nighttime temperatures are below 10 degrees centigrade, 50 Fahrenheit.
Tiffany: Mm.
Charles: It's absolute baloney because, you know, I've had this feedback a lot since putting out that reel. People in, like, Norway and Denmark, really cold climates, and putting out their tomatoes when nighttime temperatures are close to freezing.
Tiffany: Mm.
Charles: And they're saying they're, they're all fine, you know?
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: So where did that come from?
Uh, I don't know. It's probably best not to dwell on that. But it, because it's said so often, people believe it, and then their, their hands are tied 'cause they're waiting for the thermometer to go [00:48:00] up at night and, and they're losing time. Um, another one is actually hardening off. And l- l- if you're raising plants in a, in a greenhouse or polytunnel outside, there's absolutely no need to harden off at all.
I just take my plants out of the, the warm greenhouse, put them in the cold soil. I often put a cover over it, but actually at the moment, not even doing that. Mm. And plants are much hardier than we think. It's, it would be more if you're raising them in your house in, in very kind of unnatural conditions that some hardening off is necessary, but I would say a lot less than is normally recommended.
It's so much work, and I see people, you know, how much time they're spending on it. Mm. So I am always looking for quicker ways to do things. Um, no-dig is the biggest one 'cause you're saving that big job of digging. Um, another one could be watering. So it's commonly said that if you water in bright sunlight like we have at the moment, uh, that that can burn the leaves of plants.
Uh, you know, that's commonly thought, and, and it's just not true. If you think about it, though, on a sunny day, you have a thunderstorm. Leaves are wet, then the sun comes out again. Well, why aren't [00:49:00] all the leaves scorched? You know, a lot of these common beliefs don't stand up to even a bit of common sense.
So I'm, I'm looking to get to the bare bones of what really matters, and it's a bit like we were saying at the beginning, you know, turning, making complex sounding things actually really simple, 'cause they are. Uh, one other one is the use of what kind of potting mix you, you sow seeds in. Uh, people are really hot in the UK, I don't know if it's the same in Canada, you know, you've got to have a seed compost.
And the thing about the seed compost, though, as they explain it, is that it's low in nutrients, claiming that seeds don't germinate in high nutrient mix. Which is, again, absolute nonsense. You know- That makes no sense ... there are seeds that germinate in piles of manure and that kind of thing. And what it means is you need another product, and I think this might be what's behind it.
You know, it's advertising and getting people to buy more stuff, basically. So I just use one multipurpose compost mix for both for sowing seeds and potting and everything Makes life so much simpler. I don't have an extra product [00:50:00] getting confusing things, but al- more than anything, it means that my seeds, when they come up and start growing, they don't suddenly go yellow and run out 'cause they've run out of food, which I hear as feedback I get so much.
People say, "You know, what's wrong with my seeds? They aren't growing." Well, I say, "Probably something to seed compost." "Oh, yeah, it was that." And they just don't realize, you know, they've been told they need to do this. So I'm just trying to cut through all that sad un- misunderstanding that, that's really common and, and make life simpler.
Tiffany: I think a lot of it, like you, like you pointed out, is to sell a product. They- That's right ... they identify a problem that doesn't exist so they can sell a product to people, so they can- Yeah ... then s- Yeah ... solve it and,
Charles: and- And, and that's the difference between what is commonly called organic growing, which I, I feel should be called just normal growing.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: And the opposite to that in the UK at least is called conventional growing. And that, if you look up conventional in the dictionary, that means normal and natural, but that's the people who are using glyphosate, pesticides, herbicides, the whole range of poisons, and [00:51:00] that's now officially categorized as normal and natural.
So don't use that word conventional. I say they're chemical farmers, we're normal. And then related to that is what you just said there, problem, solution. So the chemical growers, you know, that's how they work. They, "Ah, there's a problem, there's aphids. I need a pesticide to kill the aphids." And of course, in doing that, they're gonna kill the ladybirds and hoverflies at the same time.
And they, I don't know, either they don't realize that or they're encouraged not to believe it. But with organic growing, and I would say no d- you know, that whole philosophy really, what, what you're looking to do is have less problems in the first place. So you, you're looking, you need these understandings so that you can see what you need to do to s- to have less problems, so you don't need to rush out for a solution.
So it's, it's a very different way of thinking, and that's what I was saying, I don't use any pesticides or herbicides, I don't need them. So, you know, 'cause I've set the garden up in a way, just like you can, how, how I explained, that doesn't need these nasty products.
Tiffany: Well, nature has a, [00:52:00] nature has a funny way of showing you how little power you actually have and, and nature has a funny way- Yeah
of putting things into balance. When we're not- Yeah ... when we're not poking at it and trying to mess with it, it's like, no, we need a certain amount of aphids, we need some ladybugs, we need birds, we need all these pests and things and, and if we don't mess with it too much, it-
Charles: Yeah ...
Tiffany: it, it works properly, it works as it should.
Charles: So right. And we're, we're finding out things now that, that make, add value to all that and make, make even more sense. Like I was reading recently, people who studied, um- plant growth with and without birdsong and how it turns out that birdsong somehow helps plants to grow, and I can't remember the exact details, but-
Tiffany: Right
Charles: that kind of makes sense to me. And when I step out in the morning here and hear the beautiful birdsong, you, you can imagine the plants, because we don't really understand how plants grow, I don't think. You know, there's a lot of more esoteric, etheric stuff that, that is little understood. So, uh, modern science has a woeful way of dismissing stuff as woo-woo or, um, [00:53:00] pseudoscience when it simply can't measure it.
You know, that's really what they're saying. I, I get that label quite a bit.
Tiffany: Have you seen the video of the mushroom playing a, a keyboard?
Charles: Oh, n-- yeah, no, I haven't
Tiffany: No, it's, it's amazing. I, like, the, the whole world of fungi and, and, uh, it's, it's amazing. I'm super excited to see where that's gonna, where that's gonna go in the future.
But- Yeah ... I don't know how they did it. They s- it, something about, uh, electrical signals firing in the mushroom. It, they hooked it up- Yeah ... to some keyboard, and- Yeah ... it, it played, like, this beautiful song. It was, it was amazing. So, I mean, even just having birds around, I mean, uh, morning and night birds come into my garden, and they eat, eat bugs off of it, so-
Charles: Yeah,
Tiffany: yeah
from, like, the most simple, basic standpoint, but I have no doubt that the plants hearing the song makes... I, I don't know, may- makes them feel good, and they wanna grow more- Yeah ... or whatever it is.
Charles: And there's another one which is, you know, related to the whole energy of how plants grow, [00:54:00] which is something I'm getting more and more interested in, um, is our intention, uh, which is actually much more powerful than most of us have been led to realize.
I would say to any listeners on this subject, don't underestimate yourself and your own abilities and power to change things and to grow wonderful food. You know, don't-- words also are important actually in this. Don't ever say to yourself, "Oh, I can't grow food," you know, "Things don't grow for me," or whatever it might be.
If you say that, that's kind of making it true. Oh. So be very careful and switch it around and say positive things like, "Yeah, I, I, I wanna grow carrots. I can grow carrots." Uh, sow the seed, you know. Just do the basics right. Obviously, you've gotta get your soil nice, no dig, compost, mulch. You can sow carrot seeds into the compost, blah, blah, blah, and they'll come up really beautifully.
And then you start to shed those negative beliefs, but also discover the power of intention, which I feel is what, um, you call, I think, green thumb, or we call it green finger. People who have that, it's because they're, they're unconsciously sometimes, [00:55:00] but just well in tune with natural processes and wanting them to encourage them and loving being involved.
And plants, nature, soil, microbes, everything can pick up that nice feeling from us, people, and resonate with it and, and develop and grow. And I, I've actually, I'm gonna be now a bit outrageous just to kind of wind up. Um, I've got a, a way of increasing the energy in the soil, which is so simple that you'll never read about it because it, it involves no products.
There's no money to be made. You just need five sticks and a bit of good intention, 20 minutes of your time.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: If you do it five times between now, um, early summer and, and the end of summer, and, and you can increase your soil temperature, uh, by putting five sticks in, so you- Around your property. You go one, two, three, four, five, and then you touch the first one, and that creates an energy field.
But while you're doing that, you are thinking these wonderful thoughts of abundant growth, strength, [00:56:00] peace, love, beauty, harmony in my space, and, and spreading good vibes all around. And I was doing this actually in a group of people once where, because I do what's called an energy gardening course, and one of the ladies was a little bit psychic.
I mean, w- when we touched the final of the five sticks, put the first one we put in, you touch it and that makes the field, she just fainted flat on the ground.
Tiffany: Really?
Charles: But she was okay. Uh, but it, you know, there's, there's real energy here. I, I can sort of feel it. I'm, I'm aware of it, but I'm not a deeply psychic person but, but I definitely get it.
And, and- Wow ... yeah, I just offer that one as a thought. Uh, there's a lot more things like that. I've, I've written a book called, um, New Energies for Gardening. Uh, I sell it from my website. Check it out. Yeah. It's, it's not expensive. It's £5 or something. And, uh, we ship it to, to your part of the world as well.
Um, so yeah, uh, there's so much to find out and explore.
Tiffany: Yeah, I mean, I think it's the height of arrogance to assume that we understand everything about the world around us. And like, if, if nothing else, being positive [00:57:00] and focusing on, uh, being open to things you don't understand and- Yes ... enjoying what you're doing, like, how is that a bad thing, right?
Charles: That's it, to be open, and that- Mm-hmm ... that's where I feel the people who, who attack me when I put up a post about, say, magnetizing water, whatever it might be-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
Charles: and they're, they're just cryptic comments, you know, woo woo, pseudoscience, just dismissing.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Charles: Um, uh, they've just got closed minds. That's what they're saying, that's what they're showing, and I feel sad.
I feel sorry for them. Um, but I, I am meeting a lot of interest in, in these approaches, which as I haven't spoken, I've been doing it for quite a long time, and speaking more about it now. I just be a little bit careful because I don't want to be com- labeled a complete crank and then people don't- ... look at the no-dig side of things at all.
But I, yeah, we need both basically.
Tiffany: I think so. I think, I think the more you open your, your mind and your heart to stuff like that, I just, I just don't see any negative to it. I mean- Yeah ... it doesn't hurt. What are you gonna do? Sit in front of the TV and watch a show you've already seen [00:58:00] before? Like, I don't know, go put sticks in the ground.
I, I think I saw a video you did on that, um, you posted on social media on the putting the sticks in the ground for-
Charles: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah. Okay.
Charles: I, I mean, I put a video on YouTube, but I've done a reel on Instagram.
Tiffany: Yeah, okay.
Charles: I find the comments on YouTube can be, I don't know if it's bots even, but you know, they can be really quite, quite hurtful and negative.
Uh, so I'm a bit more careful what I say on YouTube, but even so, yeah, I'm getting there.
Tiffany: Uh, you've got, y- well, you've got close to a million followers now. There's gonna be some, some people that are just, you're not, you're not gonna reach. But I think you're, I think you're reaching a lot of people, and, uh, a lot of people are doing things differently because of all the work you're doing, and, uh- Right
it's, it's nice to see.
Charles: Yeah, I'm happy about that. Yeah. That's been my ambition, um-
Tiffany: Yeah ...
Charles: to help people grow food more easily, you know? So if you're one of those, well done, and keep on exploring. There's more things you can find
Tiffany: out. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I've really enjoyed talking to you, and, uh, next time [00:59:00] I'm in the UK, I'd love to, uh, pop by and check out your garden.
Charles: Oh, that would be a pleasure. Yeah. Yeah, do that. Yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah. Thank you very much.
Charles: Thanks, Tiffany.
Tiffany: Okay.