My question is.....do you use green manures instead of animal manures or as well as?....i've just cut my first green manure down and i'm wondering will i still need to dig in my animal manure in the autumn?
I'd love to know what everyone else does.
thanks for any replies
i would have thought no this should be enough on its own . but see what others thing :)
Green manure will add organic mater, and nitrogen if it had any legume familly in it. Apart from that it will not be adding any NPK.
So I would go ahead with the animal manure as well
I'd prefer animal manure over green manure.
we use both, green manure(phacelia) on 2 beds after the overwintering onions and garlic, 2 beds this year with alfalfa after the squash.
the 2 with alfalfa will be next year's bean/pea beds, the 2 with phacelia will be next year's squash beds, we take out pits in these and fill with well rotted muck and the trenches/pits for peas/beans with some, as well as kitchen scraps and newspaper
potato beds will be mulched up to plant into, covered with thick card and weed control
next year's cabbage etc beds will be mulched with spent mushroom compost ;D
as much as you can really. My problem with green manure is that I end up dreading digging it all in. So much work, I've got clover and phacelia to dig in at the moment. :(
we just chop it up and cover it, cut before it seeds :)
I don't dig it in I just hoe it off and leave it. It just seems to disappear.
Hi kg,
I have cleared a large strawberry bed which has been in situ for too many years.
I spread a layer of well rotted (neat) horse manure & rotovated it in. My plan now is to sow mustard (green manure) on top & dig it in later. I reckon the soil must be pretty exhausted.