Green manures
Green manures
If you want fertile soil in your vegetable garden in spring, you need to act in autumn or even summer. After the harvest, you will be left with bare soil that is poor in nutrients. With the help of green manure, you can enrich the soil in a natural and environmentally friendly way.
So green manure crops have only one purpose, and that is not to harvest. Above all, they must grow to improve the soil. When digging over, green manures act as an alternative to regular fertilisers.
Benefits of green manures:
- Various types of green manures bind nitrogen from the air and return it to the soil. If you have just harvested a crop that has taken a lot of nitrogen from the soil (e.g. many leafy or cabbage crops), this comes in handy.
- The remaining nutrients are easily washed away on bare soil during rainy weather. In other words, green manure crops counteract soil erosion by water, thus preventing nutrient leaching.
- Weeds naturally see bare soil as an excellent opportunity to strike. However, green manures are an excellent competitor to weeds, so you naturally suppress unwanted plants.
- Green manures attract beneficial insects and butterflies. In other words, they promote biodiversity, which can only benefit pollination.
- Green manure crops keep heavy soil airier during the period between crops.
Most green manure crops are sensitive to frost and die back in winter, making it easier to dig up the plant remains.
Green manure crops by soil type
Yellow mustard and phacelia are good green manure crops for all soils. They also do very well in almost all soils. Only on heavy clay or very calcareous soil phacelia will not grow. Yellow mustard is known for absorbing nitrogen from the soil. The plant absorbs this thanks to its highly developed roots. Grasses also have this property. So if you have nitrogen-rich soil, it is good to choose one of these two green manures. Leguminous plants, such as clover or vetch, just enrich the soil with nitrogen and are therefore extremely suitable for nitrogen-poor soil.
At Hermie.com you will find a wide range of green manures, such as:
🌱 Lucerne, clover and buckwheat - Ideal for nitrogen fixation.
🌱 Phacelia - Perfect bee plant as well as ground cover.
🌱 Yellow mustard - Fast-growing and effective against weeds.
