Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Aidy on October 13, 2018, 10:16
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Good morning/ afternoon/ evening (whatever time you read this)
So I was going to do a poll to see what you good people do over winter to your beds that are empty.
A few on our site often laugh/ pull faces etc at some of our older chaps/ chapess for leaving their plots like our infamous beaches down the road, we tut and wonder how much damage will the winds, rain etc do over the months and how much top soil will vanish with the gales.
For me I have always been an avid fan of green manure, mainly grazing rye, yes it is a little work cutting it down, leaving a spell before digging (lots of digging) and then running the tiller over but in my mind, the rye has locked the top soil, extracted nutrients and now rotting to creat some structure.
However of late I have read more on the subject of how much benfit will actualy give you on our small scale operations? It has been proved on large scale farming areas, and it is easier than some alternatives on that scale but what about ours?
I read many an article where the no dig method works just as good, rotted mulch then covered and of course less work digging in, I have alway steered clear as we have armies of slugs and when people have pulled the sheets back on site there have thousands hiding and probably breeding as well.
Our beds are sandy, very sandy in fact just like the beach down the road and until the last decade pretty much the same colour of old. so we do need to protect the beds from the gales we often have here on the Fylde coast.
So what say you lot, I am intrigued to know how many of you use green manures, are we a dying breed in the allotment world?
Have you switched from green manures to a different method and why and has it achieved the same or better result?
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The no dig method of covering with well rotted manure/mulch/compostis recommended as it does not harbour slugs, as opposed to in rotted coverings giving them something to munch on as is their raison d’être, that’s why in the UK it is recommended to apply well rotted. Why don’t you try a bed & do a comparison?
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The only green manure I use nowadays is Phacelia, I makes lots of top and root growth in autumn but then gets killed off by the hardest frosts - so nothing left to dig in. I do very little digging nowadays ::)
The roots do make a lot of difference to the soil though, lightening it up as the roots rot away, but I garden on what appears to be clay, as it clumps and then cracks in dry weather, but is quite quite gritty between the fingers. So Phacelia may not be suitable for your, lighter soil.
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A bit of everything here. I over winter rye grass which I cut down in spring and then add to the compost heap. The bed is then mulched generously with compost to replace the nutrients lost in the growth of the ryegrass. During the season, empty beds have phacelia in them while I'm waiting to plant out and I use mustard to follow potatoes to wipe out any eelworms in the soil.
I don't dig over the soil as everything is in raised beds and doesn't get compressed by being walked on.
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Green manure where the ground is going to be empty for a while - field peas work well for us on fairly clay soil. Or that is the plan - since planting it is low on the heap of priorities during busy times, it doesn't always get done. We dont have enough mulch just to keep adding it on the top during the season.
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I've never used green manure. I get a big load of rotted manure from the farm next to me plus mushroom compost and just spread it over my raised beds.
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Simple. I spread a layer about 6" thick of horse-muck across every vacant patch and then dig it in mid-winter before tilling the ground in Spring ready for planting. Amount of muck is reducing each year as our ponies age and pop their clogs
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Without green manuring, you can also protect the soil from high winds by spreading sticks across the surface, or pegging a net over. The main thing is to slow the wind down. Think all those recycled trees that they set in the sand dunes at St. Anne's to stabilise them!
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You see for the problem with adding muck to the bed now is as happend today here. The amount of rain we have had has left large rivers of brown water! All that goodness is being washed away by the heavy rains, I cant see the point, if the paths are still the same in the morning I take a photo.
As regards the sand dunes, we took our girls footy team pre-season training where the old pontins was, there is loads of trees sticking up, and loads of sand on the road! This maybe slowing down but I reckon not by a lot.
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Mulch then & cover with polythene
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I'm very interested in this topic although having bought green manure [summer mix] I didn't use it this season because I was not able to do anything on the allotments when I needed to sow
like Alanin I tend to use horse manure but I'm told green manure is a good substitute and has many benefits for improving the ground so anything that does that must be worth trying having said that most gardeners agree that well rotted cattle manure is the best but its not always possible to get that these days
I'm not sure if green manure is an old method as a substitute for animal manure when animal manure was in short supply and what was it actually introduced to do ? and by who?
i've never ever seen green manure used by farmers around Northamptonshire maybe its used more down the fens for the veg growers?
i must say i'm not sure what crops you can follow after growing green manure it would be interesting to learn more about growing green manure before next season very interesting topic
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@Rowland: Green manures are not a substitute for animal manure or compost, as the don't add any more nutrients to the soil. They do protect the soil from rain leeching nutrients out of the soil, and their roots help to break up compacted ground. They work alongside organic soil amendments, not as a replacement.
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I'm not sure I agree, I think green manures are as good as compost for adding nutrients, which means neither are that good tbh.
NPK Nutritional Values of Animal Manures & Compost Etc. (http://www.allotment-garden.org/composts-fertilisers/npk-nutritional-values-animal-manures-compost/)
Even animal manures aren't that good at adding nutrients, unless you can add them in huge amounts. It's more a question of improving the soil structure with either animal or green manure, to allow roots access to what's already in the soil.
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@Rowland: Green manures are not a substitute for animal manure or compost, as the don't add any more nutrients to the soil. They do protect the soil from rain leeching nutrients out of the soil, and their roots help to break up compacted ground. They work alongside organic soil amendments, not as a replacement.
I don't agree. Green manures over winter take in nutrients that would otherwise get leached out of the soil, so indirectly they are adding nutrition by reducing loss. If green manures are not a substitute does that mean veganic gardening is unviable?
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@Rowland: Green manures are not a substitute for animal manure or compost, as the don't add any more nutrients to the soil. They do protect the soil from rain leeching nutrients out of the soil, and their roots help to break up compacted ground. They work alongside organic soil amendments, not as a replacement.
I don't agree. Green manures over winter take in nutrients that would otherwise get leached out of the soil, so indirectly they are adding nutrition by reducing loss. If green manures are not a substitute does that mean veganic gardening is unviable?
That's a fair point, I guess what I meant is that green manures are not adding nutrients to the soil (unless they're legumes) but you are right that by retaining nutrients otherwise washed out does in effect give a net gain.
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well well it just goes to show ones never to old to learn but I have to say I still believe animal manure is the best tonic for my allotments especially a good well rotted straw cattle dung don't think you can beat it
also it was proved by farmers this season that by spreading human waste on fields prior to sowings when harvesting the yields where up at least that was the case round hear although I'm not actually in favour of spreading human waste on fields
but its interesting to note your replies and what you all think is the best to put goodness back in the ground we all have our opinions on this topic and I enjoyed reading your comments possibly agree to disagree on some points but never the less I've learnt good points from this topic :nowink:
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I use green manures not as alternative but to lock and preserve what is already there and of course helping to improve our beaches.
In spring I muck in as normal, I just dont see the point of chucking well rotted muck on an empty bed, then digging it in for the rains to come and form brown rivers down the paths for 6 months before you start the growing season and then as many do chuck 6 ton of growmore to feed the veg!
It has been an interesting thread to read with your answers so I guess I have found out that we the winter green manure people are a dying breed!
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We live in a farming community where livelihoods depend on getting the soil right for growth, whether that be pasture, spuds, grain or fodder crops so I tend to follow farmers' examples and use lavish amounts of muck before sowing
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We live in a farming community where livelihoods depend on getting the soil right for growth, whether that be pasture, spuds, grain or fodder crops so I tend to follow farmers' examples and use lavish amounts of muck before sowing
It is interesting as around our parts I have noticed a lot of grazing rye in fields which will be turned over come spring.
I to muck in when springs arrives, I am talking of protecting and improving the soil structure while it is dormant over winter.