Community › Community › No dig gardening › Preparing the ground › Green manure – dig or no dig? › Reply To: Green manure – dig or no dig?
Hi Brereton – I’m new to all of this, but I’ve been doing some research and I’m interested in your situation.
If your plot is still completely covered with weeds etc, then I would suggest that your first priority would be to cover it completely with plastic or permeable membrane in order to kill the existing growth. I would suggest that the sooner you do it, the better. It is probably too wet, but consider rotavating it before covering it. You will need bare soil to sow your green manure, and it seems an unnecessary expense to buy compost in order to grow green manure.
If you are not planning to use the land this year, then maybe you should leave it covered until late summer before sowing the green manure. I think that the mix you have chosen is recommended for a medium term manure, but I daresay that it would also be useful for a single winter’s growth.
In the spring of 2018, I think it would be appropriate to cut down the growth and cover it for a week or three. You would then be able to choose between sowing seeds into a mulch of compost or planting seedlings into the remains of the green manure.
I am completely open to correction on anything I have said!