Topic: green manure, rotted manure AND crop rotation - how do they fit together?

[anthea]

Hello, I'm a new allotment person, and wish I could spend nearly all my time there, I love it.

When I'm not there, I'm often trying to piece together the various bits of advice I've been given or have read. This is the one that I'm really stuck with.

My soil is very poor, tending towards clay, and crumbles on top to set like cement when it rains after dry weather. So I want to do all I can to improve it once my ailing little crops have struggled through this season.

I like the idea of green manure, but (a) not sure if this will be enough to improve the soil by itself, should I dig in horse nuts too? But when (the horse nuts I can get is fresh, not well rotted) and in which order, green manure first or horse nuts first?

Then (b), even more puzzling to me, if I want to do crop rotation how do I choose green manures? eg Do I use a leguminous green manure for the area where my peas & beans have been this year?, or, do I put leguminous green manure where I plan to plant peas NEXT year, but then can I follow leguminous green manure with a leguminous crop??
Or do I just not count green manure as a crop, and ignore crop rotation as far as green manures are concerned?

If any of you can tell me how you deal with all this, or how you went about improving your soil at the beginning, I'd be really glad to learn from  you.

Thanks
Anthea

[Carls3168]

Hiya Anthea,

Welcome to the wonderful world of allotmenting!

Your question has confused me... but I'll try answer best I can until the pro's get here!  ;D

If your soil is a clay type it is probably very fertile and holds its nutriants well therefore reducing any need for green manures which are generally used on sandy soil where the nutriants leach out during the winter. If you want to improve its `texture` you can mix in manure, or compost in large quantitys which should, over the years, make it more friable and crumbly and stop it drying out as much.
This Autumn try getting large amounts of manure from a stables or local farmer to lay on top of your beds and rot down over the winter... as for the `type` of manure (cow/horse/sheep) you dont need to be too choosy as your just using it to break up the clay. Another option for improving your soil could be raised beds? Depends on the amount of time (and money) you have spare.

As for crop rotation have a read through this:

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/smf/index.php?topic=14631.0

Hope that helps  ;)