green manure advice again

[Sarico]

sorry guys if i open a new post about green manure but more i read on the forum and online more i'm confused... i know the main reason that people use it is to cover up bare soil overwinter and to add organic matter in spring and that is one of the reason i want to plant them, but i have few question about....
1) i know that some of them are legume or brassica and better not to plant them where you want to plant legume or brassica next year but when i pull my beans and peas out later this year there is problem if i plant legume green manure in there? if yes what GM you advice? and for brassica bed what you can plant as GM?
2) after reading a lot on the forum and reading two sheds post and look at her FB pictures i loved her allotment and i want the same for mine, but i'm worried if all that beautiful mess of green manure growing along the plants will required a lot of watering and care considered that plant are competing each other for water or that mess is better because the soil is much more healthy then a weed clean bed and tidy?
3) in a bed where i will plant squash and corn can i sow some GM now and then make a space at the end of may?
4) sorry for the boring letter

[batman]

I'm a newbie myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt ;-)

As I understand green manures, they actually keep moisture in the soil, because they provide ground cover and shade. So rather than compete with the main crop plants, they actually leave the soil better.
I also believe that sweet corn definitely benefits from a ground cover.

Not sure about the legume/brassica question though, but I'll be watching this thread.


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[Sarico]

that was exactly what i thought inn the first place...

[Two_Sheds]

i'm worried if all that beautiful mess of green manure growing along the plants will required a lot of watering ... plant are competing each other for water

You would think that they compete for water & nutrients. However, different plants have different needs, and if you plant different species, they are going to take different things out of the soil.

Plus if you have deep rooters like alfalfa, they take water from much lower down in the soil than shallow rooted plants like limnanthes.

Remember also that plants make their own food from sunlight (photosynthesis), they don't take everything out of the soil, plus decaying plants are adding new nutrient to the soil.

As to water in particular, having a permanent mulch, even a living growing mulch of plants, actually prevents water loss from evaporation. Those who have bare brown soil lose a lot of water to evaporation, as the sun bakes the soil dry.

I've proved it this week. All my neighbours are complaining of dry soil, but mine is still wet under my mulches. It's a hard thing to get people to change their methods though, even when the evidence is right under their noses! They just want to carry on with their entrenched beliefs (bare soil good, green manure messy).

My plot doesn't need more water than anyone else's, in fact I water much, much less than those with hosepipes (which provide a whole plot's water needs in just 20 mins).

[Two_Sheds]

green manures, they actually keep moisture in the soil, because they provide ground cover and shade. So rather than compete with the main crop plants, they actually leave the soil better.

yes, exactly that

Not sure about the legume/brassica question though,

You can make GMs terribly complicated, if you want to have exact quantities of a particular nutrient, or want to follow a very strict crop rotation.

I don't have the time or the interest, tbh. I prefer to follow what nature does as far as I can, so I allow my GMs to self seed all over the place, only pulling them up when I want to plant a crop.
If I was to have a sickly crop, say the sweetcorn all failed, then I would investigate, but as yet I've had no such problems.

I water less, I weed less (than my neighbours) and I don't spend money on fertilisers & sprays. I do hear mutterings about my "messy" plot, but to my eyes a bare brown desert is more offensive, and it's certainly detrimental to our bees & butterflies

[Sarico]

Thanks a lot two sheds for your answers. I just bought some poached egg Plant seeds from aldi so I can use it for gm in the bed that the squashed will go later on and then if they still small at that time I will leave them until the squad grow. Plus I plan to put in one bed some legumes and sweetcorn and in between some butternut squash and some red clover or other one. I would love a jungle allotment. Thanks a lot