No-dig and other Organic Principles
If you are growing on fairly large scale, you may be interested exploring permaculture, no dig methods and organic growing. These are all designed to minimise the harmful impacts of growing crops in a monoculture and encourage self-reliance. Many of these methods will become necessary for commercial farming to adopt in the near future.
These methods, at their core, are all about working with natural processes rather than working against them. Permaculture will help one to decide what to grow where by observing sunlight, wind, shelter and rain. This means that it will vary from garden to garden what exactly to grow where and when.
The dependance on pesticides can be reduced through various tactics. Marigolds deter eel worms from nearby tomatoes. Lovage and sweet cicely attract aphids' natural predators. Filling a planter with water can be used to attract frogs to the garden, which will perform the same role as slug pellets. Producing your own, organic compost at home will reduce the amount of artificial fertilisers that you need to buy.
No dig means leaving soil undisturbed. You add organic matter to the surface, as happens in nature, to maintain drainage and aeration and build the organic layer of soil. The no-dig philosophy is best for potatoes, cabbages and marrows. After knocking down any weeds, a layer of cardboard, newspapers or natural-fibre carpets will kill weeds by blocking out their light. Some mulch or compost on top provides nutrients for the plants and by piercing the cardboard layer you help new roots reach the soil. Then add compost or topsoil before sprinkling straw, or grass clippings and leaves. Fewer weeds grow in undisturbed soils. Look at Charles Dowding’s page on No-Dig in Resources for someone who has decades of experience with no-dig farming.