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Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: GRACELAND on July 22, 2010, 14:47:14

Title: Hello All Question on Green Manure ?
Post by: GRACELAND on July 22, 2010, 14:47:14
Ie  Sowing a green Manure to dig in

Any tips

i want to plant soon  ready to dig in for winter digging

And thoughts please  :) 
Title: Re: Hello All Question on Green Manure ?
Post by: Chrispy on July 22, 2010, 14:58:46
What type of soil do you have? This will determine what is best to sow.
Also, do you need to dig in in the winter? Lots of green manures will over winter and be dug in in the spring, which means your soil will have the protection of the manure over the winter.
Title: Re: Hello All Question on Green Manure ?
Post by: manicscousers on July 22, 2010, 15:03:13
we do phacelia this time of year,just chop and cover when it's ready.. looking to do winter tares in a couple of beds, too ;D
Title: Re: Hello All Question on Green Manure ?
Post by: GRACELAND on July 22, 2010, 15:03:52
Its pretty good soil  But it can get water logged in wet winters

I was hopping to plant one soon and may be dig in this winter or early spring ?

Do you let the plant die down on its own or do you chop it in ?
Title: Re: Hello All Question on Green Manure ?
Post by: Chrispy on July 22, 2010, 15:17:55
I have a heavy soil, goes like wet concrete in a wet winter.
Last year I sowed Hungarian grazing rye, winter tares and field beans.

The Hungarian grazing rye was great, did a good job of breaking up the soil and was not bothered at all about all the snow.
It grew to about 4 inches in the autumn, sorry, don't remember when I planted it, will start planted this years in a few weeks time.
In the spring it started to grow again, I chopped it down and dug it in early April, had got to about 18 inches in height.
I left a small area to save the seeds, it grew 6ft tall, I managed to get 600g of seed from an area of about 1.5m2, so going by that, for every m2 you save for seed you should be able to sow 25m2.

The winter tares I planted by themselves were no good, they all died when the snow fell on them.
I did sow a few in with the grazing rye, these did well producing quite a lot if green matter.

The field beans also did well, stood through the winter with out much problem.
Title: Re: Hello All Question on Green Manure ?
Post by: GRACELAND on July 22, 2010, 15:24:02

Chrispy
                 Thanks for your in put This is new to me usualy just use horse manure But
Thought i would try this