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In
autumn most crops have been harvested. Next season's tomatoes, potatoes, corn,
pumpkins and so many others will only be planted in half a year, or even later.
Our garden beds have supplied us with food and it's a good idea to give
something back in return, to plant something for the benefit of the soil rather
than for our immediate use. So we sow green manure crops during autumn and
early winter to improve the soil quality. Our green manure crops contain oats,
beans, peas, barley, ryecorn and lupin seeds. We buy 10kg bulk bags from the
local produce agency. About 15kg of green manure seed are enough for all those
beds where we sow them.
Green
manure crops have quite a few benefits:
- they stabilize the soil. Winter rains won't wash out the garden beds.
- they capture the nutrients which the rains would wash out otherwise.
- they add organic matter to the soil when they are dug under in spring before
planting and they add fertility to the soil.
- the lupins, peas and tic beans are nitrogen fixers. They enrich the soil with
nitrogen which fertilizes subsequent crops.
- they keep the moisture in the soil and this can reduce the need for
irrigation in subsequent crops.
| Green Manure Blend |
% by weight |
% by count |
seeds/kg |
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| ryecorn |
10% |
36% |
3600 |
| oats |
15% |
36% |
3600 |
| tic beans |
40% |
8% |
800 |
| blue lupins |
20% |
13% |
1300 |
| grey peas |
15% |
7% |
700 |
Benefits
of the individual plants in our green manure blend:
Ryecorn: deep and numerous root system, adds bulk to the soil
Oats: fast growing and winter active cereal, also good for bulk
Tic beans: small-seeded "heirloom" faba bean variety with
vigorous winter growth and a hollow stem which can be chopped and dug in
easily. Nitrogen fixing.
Blue lupins: exceptionally quick establishing lupin. Frost tolerant and
thrives in low fertility soils, Easy to dig in. Nitrogen fixing.
Grey peas: good winter growth. Trailing variety that will fill the gaps
between plants. Very easy to dig in. Nitrogen fixing.
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May: at this time of the year most of our garden
beds are planted with green manure. The Green Rosellas love the manure
seeds, and we have to chase them away time after time. But as the photos
show, enough seeds are left to germinate! |
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| Green manure sowing rates:
- 2 handfulls per square metre or
100 grams per square metre
- a garden bed 5m wide by 10m long
requires 5kg of green manure blend |
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| In Spring we slash the green manure and
dig in the plants. This should be done before they start to flower and
deplete the soil again. We then add our complete organic fertilizer and
horse manure when we prepare the beds for planting the new crop for the
next season. |
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