Reply To: Green Manure crops

[John]

Hi All

I am learning to play trumpet and my trumpet forum has distinct ‘schools’ of thought, each based on a different trumpet guru, all quite different but aiming for the same end result. I have discovered that gardening is just the same! There are double diggers, single diggers, no-diggers, green manurers, composters, row planters, block planters, raised bedders, etc!

This discussion has been of great benefit to me. I should like to ask Don to give some detail about ‘if you need material there are much better ways of accumulating it’, bearing in mind that I would like the plot to be as self sufficient as possible, rather than importing lots of material. This is one of the guidelines for ‘best practice’ for organic gardening.

If I had bins full of compost I would not have a problem, but I doubt that the waste just from harvested crops can give sufficient compost to give the annual level of composting that Charles suggests, hence my interest in green manure. Cropping it, rather than digging it in has the dual advantage of bulking up the compost heap and not having the 2-4 week delay before planting following crops.

I will trial it and let you know the results.

John