Hi Gill and thanks for your interest,
My green manure experiment started over 20 years ago, with the aim of establishing a self sufficient vegetable garden, without the need for manure or fertiliser. Very briefly; I sow all green manures in rows to make cultivation and weed management easier, I always follow potatoes with grazing rye and onions with alfalfa, phacelia is used when need arises as temporary cover and has the added benefit, (if allowed to flower), of providing food for bees at times when there is little else available. I always have a permanent bed of comfrey, using the leaves for liquid feed and to mix in the compost bin. Grazing rye can be pulled up with little soil disturbance in June, (leaving some for seed production), then composted, with leeks following on. Alfalfa can be hard work, the roots need to chopped below ground level and do not regrow but the following brassica crop always seems to do well. My original experimental plot has not had any material imported for a long, long time and gives exceptional yields. My newest plot (3 years old now) still gets a bit of pelleted chicken manure and I am not that entrenched in my ways to refuse the offer of a bit of chicken manure from the chicken men on the allotments.
Pete
PS its not Gill is it sorry