Why you need to plant the beds with green manure plants

It is better not to keep the autumn beds naked, and plant siderat plants in late September – early October. These are natural fertilizers that will significantly increase the fertility of the garden.

23 September 2017

Green manures are effective green fertilizers. In organic farming, sowing green manure is the most effective and low-cost means for soil fertility, and, therefore, you can save on buying fertilizers in stores.

These wonderful plants are able not only to restore soil fertility, but also to improve the soil microflora, get rid of some pests and diseases, and even suppress the growth of weeds. If you constantly sow siderates, then the structure of the soil is restored, the access of air and moisture improves, the roots loosen the soil, enrich the green organic matter, reduce the acidity of the earth – with the help of a powerful root system, plants extract minerals from the lower layers of the soil, and some of them (from the family legumes (vetch, lupine, peas, broad beans, alfalfa and clover) are capable of extracting nitrogen from the air, since their roots are home to nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

To grow the right siderates, you need to take into account the characteristics of the soil and what exactly you are going to plant in these beds. For various plantings, you need your own green manure plants. For example, after mustard, potatoes, onions, garlic and other bulbs grow well. But mustard is a poor precursor for kale and other crucifers. Siderata from this family are not suitable because they have common diseases and pests. Sowing siderates of this family after radish or cabbage is also not recommended. It is better to use several types of green manure in compliance with the general rules of vegetable crop rotation. In gardens, green manure crops are sown in the aisles of trees or shrubs.

If we have planned planting, then we need to select in advance the green manure for the main crop.

For most vegetables, siderates from spring and winter crops are suitable: phacelia, lupine, as well as crops of rape, mustard, radish, vetch, buckwheat, oats, rapeseed, winter rye, vetch-oat mixture and others.

In the beds

Podzimny sowing of green manure is carried out after the final harvesting of the culture. They are planted on vacated beds, carefully cleaned of diseased tops and weeds.

Winter green manures are sown scattered or in rows, embedded to a depth of 2-4 cm in the first decade of October (sweet clover, vetch, winter rye and others). If the aboveground part did not have time to form in the fall, then in the spring it will surely grow back.

In the spring, before planting or sowing the main crops, winter green manure is plowed into the soil with continuous sowing, but if there is a lot of green mass, then part of the mass is mowed into compost.

In the greenhouse

The best greenhouse greenhouse greenhouse crops are cereals: oats and rye. They are able to clear the soil from fungi and infections, help in the fight against late blight. The dense greens of cereals are not buried in the ground during cutting, but are left to rot on the surface. Mustard is an orderly in the fight against various types of rot, scab, rhizoctonia; helps to reduce the number of wireworm larvae. You can sow mustard in the greenhouse in autumn until November. The vegetation that has grown to 20-30 cm is cut off and mixed with the top layer of soil, and in the spring, a bed saturated with organic matter is obtained. Legumes – peas, beans, beans – get along well with all crops in the greenhouse.

When sowing greenhouse crops in a greenhouse in the fall, the seeds are densely poured into the ground, humus is added, spilled abundantly with water and left until spring. After overwintering, the plants will quickly pick up greens. Preventing overgrowth and flowering, the grasses are mowed and slightly added to the top layer of the soil.

As fertilizing plants for cucumbers, crops of the family of cereals (rye, oats) and legumes (lupine, beans, clover) are perfect. They have also proven themselves well as liquidators of harmful colin – a substance secreted by the roots of cucumbers that can harm subsequent plantings. After growing tomatoes in a greenhouse, winter crops (oats, barley) are suitable.

Leave a Reply