[Greendream]

Hi everyone!

As I have a young baby I know that I wont be able to manage the whole plot this year and nobody seems interested in taking over half ( God knows why...I know loadsa people who are waiting for plots!)  
I thought I may turn half of it over to green manure for this year...just dont know whats the best to go for...and when to plant it???
Its a south facing plot on a slope which is exposed to sea winds. the soil is good, quite loamy.
Any advice is appreciated!  

[Stoatus]

Try http://www.thevegetablepatch.com/organicfertilisers.htm

You can get a mixture of ryegrass and vetch from Thompson and Morgan which grows rapidly and will stand through the winter.

[Greendream]

Cheers! Will give that a go!

[lacewing]

Green manure seed is not cheap, especially if you want to cover a large area.  You have to sow it quite thickly to stop the weeds. I  use weed controle fabric to cover any ground not in use.  A layer of manure spread under the fabric  keeps the soil in good heart.

[Pompey Spud]

Hi
IMO i wouldn't cover the ground with fabric. as it doesn't look up to much and its not helping the soil.

Hungarian grazing rye is the way to go. Really works for me and over winters well.

More importantly, you're feeding the soil with great humus when it decays, it does smother weeds really well and it looks like you're doing something.

It can be difficult to dig, so if you can borrow a rotavator i'd recommend it.

There are other good ones but Rye is cheap,hardy with good coverage.

Just don't use matting.

Warwicks in Wickham Hants sells the seed loose. Give them a shout.

Sow early Spring by the way.

[noshed]

Hungarian Grazing Rye works well but it is a bit of a s*d to dig in. Field beans are good and you can just chop the tops off those, compost them and leave the roots in the soil for the nitrogen. But if you can get a bag of cheap broad bean seeds (lots of hardware shops sell them loose) dibble in a few rows of them, even in weedy ground, then you can eat the broad beans as well. Then compost the tops and you've fixed nitrogen into the soil.
I've done all of this so it does work. And broad beans are my favourite veg.

[zazen999]

What I'd do, is to cover the lot with cardboard, and plant your spuds through it using a bulb planter. As you've got alot of space you can space them out wider, and they won't need earthing up. You can just cover one day [using cardboard boxes from supermarkets = free], use any spare bricks/stones/a shovel of mud to weight them down. Then water the card, and plant the seed potatoes through the card the next day.

Then just leave them to it. Meanwhile, you can work on the bit of the plot that you can manage this year.

don't waste cash on weed fabric or green manure; use it on seed potatoes and get yourself a crop out of it