Im thinking of growing some green manure this year for the first time after the main crops are out, probably red clover as this fixes nitrogen, anyway anyone had experiece of this?
When do I plant ect?
I have major concern as to the authenticity of the "green manure" approach...........growing it in situation that is.........Has it ever been calculated as to how much nitrogen is taken OUT to grow a crop with the intention of puting in nitrogen?..............I think a good compost/grass clippings/manure is a better approach
A clover crop when ploughed in yields about 150 - 175 kgs of nitrogen per hectare, releasing it slowly for 2 years. that's how organic farmers do it.
How much nitrogen is taken OUT to produce the crop?.....................folks would need 20 or 30 rod allotements to have the luxury of leaving section unproductive for long periods
none at all! clover fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere (with help from bacteria)
Hi ishard, all,
my allotment neighbour surprised me, he grows broad beans on about 5rods of his plot, which he doesn't harvest,but when they start to flower, before starting to pod up, he rips them out and lays it all in the trenches where he will plant his seed potatoes. If that is not 'Green manure' then i don't know what is. By the way, he has four 10 rod plots.
Thanks for all your replies :)
There are 2 reasons why I want to plant a winter thing such as clover
1 It fixes nitrogen in the soil same as peas and can be 'tillered' in come spring
2 I dont want to give weeds the excuse to grow when there is nothing planted over winter and red clover is a great weed suppressant as it ground covers.
Bryan let me get this straight, your neighbour digs in broad bean plants BEFORE they crop? lol
Great soil, no beans then!
One of the common green manures is called "field beans" so i guess that's the same (but probably more expensive).
I've used phacelia and something else over winter and both havedone quite a good job at keeping the weeds down- I've yet to see whether they've improved the soil.
My worry with green manures is the potential for the plants themselves to become a sort of weed. Rye grass for example which is advocated as a green manure is, I believe, quite hard to get rid of.
we do phacelia every year on a couple of beds that beans will be going in next year, seems to help ;D
and we don't have it as a weed, it just pulls out easily if one escapes the hoe
As well as preventing leaching of trace elements and if you use a nitrogen fixing variety - increasing the available nitrogen levels - the green manure when dug in also adds a lot of organic matter to the soil making it more retentive over time.
Yes phacelia is good and also has v pretty flowers.
Ishard, all,
Yes he does it before they pod up but does leave enough to gather the beans so he can sow and do the same next year. I will be trying this myself next year, we don't like broad beans in our house, and it does seem to keep the plot weed free as he sows them in November and they are up by late January, suppressing any weed as he sows them quite dense. I forgot to mention that he is of Portuguese origin, and they practice this at home.
It seems that phacelia is killed by frost so that wouldnt work for all winter although they do look pretty :)
I have E mailed Hurrels Seeds for more info on red clover as to whether I can keep this in the ground over winter and mix it in come spring.
Oh thats very interesting Bryan, however I think Im too mean to just plant the seeds of BB just for digging in, I would have to crop them. lol
Have a look here http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo_now/faqs.php?id=8 (http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo_now/faqs.php?id=8) or here http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_51 (http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_51)
Grawrc thank you those links they are just what I needed. ;D
I find Buckwheat good,grows well ,bulks up good,easy to dig in rots down quick and insect's love it's flowers
If you let green manures flower, doesn't that increase the chance of them self-seeding and causing problems later?
ours sometimes flower, we just cut them before they seed, sometimes leave a couple as the bees love phacelia flowers and they're so easy to pull up :)
I still think green manure is an entirely avoidable hassle.....surely organic matter/compost is a better approach..........contractors are pleased to get rid of grass/tree/shrub shreddings
my green manure field beans are now over 4ft tall. I forgot to turn them in. I'll just have to eat the tops, the pods, the beans.........The whole lot seems to be being pollinated by 2 little bees. Hard workin chaps. Probably from Poland
Quote from: Geomet on May 14, 2008, 19:22:39
I still think green manure is an entirely avoidable hassle.....surely organic matter/compost is a better approach..........contractors are pleased to get rid of grass/tree/shrub shreddings
How is scattering some seeds then digging over a hassle? More, for example, than tracking down a "contractor" and getting them to deliver to an allotment site during the few hours you have free, usually on weekends when they're not supposed to be working? Geomet, you seem to have some odd ideological objection to green manure, because your arguments against it so far are very strange.
Got some flowers on a few phacelia I missed when digging in-really pretty, will leave some on purpose next year!
Yes they are lovely and they attract pollinating insects too.
To Bupster................What in the heck is "strange" about increasing fertility WITHOUT having to go through the process of growing green manure.........I stand by my view regarding the logic in green manure.I,m also not convinced that NO nitrogen is taken out of the soil whilst growing anything......................you stick by your approach.I,ll use my methods which I consider better
The dock leaves and couch grass love the hungarian rye that we planted last year!
;)
Hurrels replied to my e mail and suggested I use the company below because they dont supply the small amounts of seed I would need for my allotment.
That was really nice of them to give me somewhere to look. :)
This link also gives information about how green manures work and the relative values compared to animal manures.
http://www.cotswoldseeds.com/intercropGM.htm
Ive decided Im going to buy a selection (and mix them myself) of the low growing manures rather than the rye.
to Geomet, You are right not to believe us peeps on here, what would we know?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation
No way can I ever believe that growing ANY plant doesnt take minerals and goodness OUT of the soil.....including nitrogen...........as I,ve said already it seems a rediculous approach to increasing fertility when there is far better methods.
Of course the plant takes goodness out of the soil. You then put it back by digging it in or composting it. You're also adding goodness, due to all the carbon, and nitrogen if you've used a legume, which the plants have taken from the atmosphere.
I,ll stick with a good autumn/winter mulch....seems a better approach to me
Each to his own guys :)
Diseases that can pass from animals to humans are called zoonotics and take a gander at the wonderful ones from cow manure.
Bovine Diseases Spread Via Manure:
BVD
Coccidiosis
Cryptosporidiosis
Giardia
E. coli
Salmonella
Campylobacter
Johne's disease
Listeria
Bovine Diseases Spread by Manure-Contaminated Water:
BVD
Cryptosporidiosis
Giardia
E. coli
Salmonella
Campylobacter
Johne's disease
Bovine Diseases Spread by Manure-Contaminated Pasture or Forages:
Coccidiosis
Cryptosporidiosis
Giardia
E. coli
Salmonella
Campylobacter
Johne's disease
Stark stuff.....................why dont you do what I do if that detailed info worrys you...................Get a compost heap going of a size which can supply enough humus and fertility without cow manure........I have 3 contractors deliver tree shreddings.grass cuttings(no treated grass) and some left over turf etc etc.....................their happy and I,m happy to get it
An additional important point in my opinion...........always chuck in a couple of spades of soil after ever addition to yer heap....it takes the necessary bacteria into the heap quicker
Yeh I do have a HUGE compost heap too ;D
I'll try anything: compost, green manure, it's all good.
This year I tried mustard - only took about 6 weeks to germinate/grow to right sort of size, crowded out all the other weeds, was easy to dig back in and rotted down in no time. The soil seems much better too - will definitely try this again, although it's not a winter one.
I only tried green manure once. So proud when it grew, it looked really pretty then winter/ spring came and went and half way through summer thought it's about time I dug this in:)
I look back and laugh now but I felt like crying when I couldn't get the fork in the ground for it's wonderful root system ;D I thought it was a nightmare I had to hire a rotavator before I could work the ground. I never tried it again as I couldn't remember what one I had sown and was worried it would happen again, which I couldn't have coped with as I hate rotavators.
Sinbad
I did it as I have trouble getting lots of organic matter. I sowed mustard and phacelia. They have not reappeared so they are not such a hassle, I cut them down after the frosts and let them rot on the ground them dug them in when digging the beds. Not much extra work and the soil round there does look nice, so I think it provides some benefits. They also have the advantage of looking nice at the end of the season when the plot is all dug up and half dying, not always very pretty.
I thought that too many grass clippings tended to make the soil poor in nitrogen?
They've got loads of nitrogen; it's wood chippings that do that.
Legumes e.g. Clover have an association with the rhizobium bacteria which forms nodules on the plants roots (to live in!) and they fix nitrogen from the air i.e. the nitrogen lost into the air is captured by these bacteria.
I bought some white clover to sow into my lawn which is doing well though some of it rather mysteriously died last autumn...looked like the effects of herbicide to me I suspect my neighbour decided he didn't like it. Though the funny thing is he sowed the new lawn mix with microclover in it in the spring I suspect he didn't read the box properly!
i was going to sown it as a green manure but then there is some growing at my allotment already and it's hard to dig out when it gets in a bed as the stems are so tough.
Im growing phacelia, and I have let it flower. Im just checking each time im there that the flowers aren't going to seed, and if they are I nip them off.
Each time I go to the allotment I see about 30 bee's buzzing around the flowers. They really cant seem to get enough of them!
Thats the main reason I have left the flowers on.
I do have a question though. I have the green manure in where my spuds are going next year, but someone above said they are following it with legumes.
I guess it's all good, but should I consider changing my plan?
One of the points about growing green manure is it does take nitrogen and other things out of the soil as well as the atmosphere, stores them then releases them back into the soil when they break down after cutting and digging in. The storage is one of the important things as this stops the goodness leeching away into the soil, especially over winter, when it rains. When you use farm manure, it loses a lot of the goodness over the winter period through leeching.
Other benefits are it keeps weeds at bay and if left to flower, attracts important insects to the plot.
Be careful though as you do have to make sure you use it within your rotation.
Also there is nothing wrong with using both farm and green, and the green doesn't have to be in your beds for long periods of time, it just depends on what you use.
I bought a selection of green manures from the Organic Gardening catalogue last year but never seem to have any space left to plant them! What are the best ones for planting in autumn but digging in early spring when the space is needed again?
For everything you need to know about green manure and cover crops go here for a printable fact sheet.
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/pdfs/international_programme/GreenMan.pdf
Would it be possible to put this link in the links area?
This link also gives approximate planting times as, if my memory serves me right, does the Organic gardening catalogue.
http://www.btinternet.com/~bury_rd/green.htm (http://www.btinternet.com/~bury_rd/green.htm)
I will definitely be doing this this year, especially given the info on another thread about problems with manure. Soil on my plot is pretty poor so hopefully this will help.
Phacalia is wonderful stuff, and it fits in the rotation anywhere. It is great for attracting bees, and although it self seeds the seedlings are quite distinctive so easily weeded out if they are growing where you don't want any... :)