Recommendations for green manure plants to sow?

[Samuel1988]

Evening all,

I wish to sow some green manures to help my soil & I was wondering which plants are the best to use a a green manure crop?

Also are they edible?

Many thanks,

Samuel

[WilliamD]

This is a plain mustard green manure in one of my beds. When I strim and dig it in it'll put fresh organic matter into the soil.



But lately I've been sowing specifically Caliente mustard because it adds more nitrogen than some others. It's smaller and apparently slower-growing than the generic mustard above, but it's the one for me at the moment.

[Alison]

Evening all,

I wish to sow some green manures to help my soil & I was wondering which plants are the best to use a a green manure crop?

Also are they edible?

Many thanks,

Samuel

The type to use will depend on what you want it to do and what sort of soil you have. Some are nitrogen fixing also so it will depend how you rotate your crops. You'll probably get better advise if you can give a few more details. Re eating them, some probably are edible but that's not the point, you dig them into the ground to get the full benefits rather than taking away.

[Noosner]

I like field beans, Samuel. They are like wild broad beans, do well at this time of year and help to break up clay soil. I'm pretty sure you can treat them like broad beans and eat the shoots - you can certainly leave some to grow on and get short-podded broadies next year (3 or 4 beans in each).