Sowing green manure
Advantages, plants & tips
Green manure is used as a secondary crop in the garden and is usually not harvested but worked into the soil. It contributes to humus enrichment and also has many other benefits for your vegetable garden. You can find out which plants are suitable as green manure and how best to use them here.
Advantages of green manure
- Deep soil loosening, even in compacted soils
- Suppresses weeds through extensive vegetation
- Strengthens the soil surface and protects it from silting and erosion
- Shadow cultivation ensures a balanced soil climate
- Enrichment of organic matter and humus
- Improved water retention in the soil - Legumes enrich nitrogen in the soil
- Flowering plants attract pollinators
Which plants are suitable as green manure?
Usually, fast-growing plants, legumes and strongly rooted plants are used as green manure. Here are a few common examples:
- Fabaceae: vetch, sainfoin, clover or lupin
- Asteraceae: marigold, sunflower or etageres
- Brassicaceae: oil radish, white mustard or winter rape
- Others: buckwheat, lamb's lettuce, winter rye, mallow, flax, phacelia or mixtures (e.g. clover-grass)
Sowing green manure
Cultivation is not necessary for green manure. Simply spread the seeds over the bed after you have removed the last vegetable plants and work them lightly into the soil with a rake so that the seeds are lightly covered with soil. Just make sure that the plants you are using as green manure can still germinate and grow at the current outside temperatures. If it is very dry during the germination phase, you can also water the seeds occasionally.
Couleur auf pixabay
