[gowing238]

i planted the majority of my beds with over wintering green manure. rye grass clover and mustard if i remember correctly. its grown well all over winter. the last few weeks cold weather killed most of them off. i cut it all down to ground level bout a fortnight ago. today i had a go of digging a bed in. hard work! was wondering if your supposed to dig in all the cuttings as well as the roots or do i removes all the old top growth first? thanks in advance.

[mumofstig]

It all gets dug in, it's not easy  as you now know.
I found Phacelia was the easiest one to dig in, because it is weakened by the worst of the winter weather.

[gowing238]

thanks for that mum. thought id read that before? dont mind a bit of digging. it was just it didnt look right after id dug it over with all the leafy bits poking through! does it all take long to break down then? purpose its all got to be dug for a few weeks before planting up in.

[mumofstig]

You have to wait about a month before planting up, so the sooner it's all dug in the better

[Salmo]

If there is a lot of tops that are difficult to dig in you can rake them off and compost them. It all goes back into the soil eventually.

The roots are as much value as the tops, especially with ryegrass and clover that you have.

After you have dug you should wait a bit before planting, as others have said. The green manure will grow rapidly in the next few weeks so if you can delay digging you will get a lot more material, both roots and leaves. Look at your cropping and see if there are any parts of the plot that will not be sown/planted until later. Dig these areas last.

[JohnB47]

thanks for that mum. thought id read that before? dont mind a bit of digging. it was just it didnt look right after id dug it over with all the leafy bits poking through! does it all take long to break down then? purpose its all got to be dug for a few weeks before planting up in.

I dug mine in a couple of weeks ago and it's like you say - lots of bits of green sticking out here and there. Last year I had quite a few bits that regrew. It's just a case of pulling these up when you see them. I think I'll go over mine again soon and use a sharp spade to dig through all the poking up green bits to sever them off and maybe rake the patch over to try to cover everything with soil.

I think to do a really good job of turning everything over and burying all the top growth would need some serious double digging, which I'm not into.

[upert]

This thread reminds me to dig in my over-wintered rye grass.

[moose]

I just chop it down and cover with cardboard.

[ilan]

just out of intrest does green manure work for the effort involved . It is taken from farming practice where the farmer has a dirty great 400hp tractor to plough it in whilst against 1 man power .?

[Salmo]

If you dig properly with a sharp spade you should have no problem. Turn each spadefull right over into the bottom of the trench. See the diagran of how to do it here on the rival channel

http://www.allotmenteer.co.uk/allotmentinfosheets/howtodigoveryourplot.pdf