#green manure

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Monday 6 July 2026

The hardy annual Phacelia tanacetifolia (fiddleneck) is being used in this productive garden as a green manure. The abundant flowers are in terminal, curved cymes and very attractive to bees and other insects.

Jill Raggett

[wildrungarden]

⭐️Currently reading: The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka ⭐️

‘Just playing or doing nothing at all, children are happy. A discriminating adult, on the other hand, decides what will make him happy, and when these conditions are met he feels satisfied.’

The synopsis calls it ‘Zen and the Art of Farming.’ This book is about his experience over 30 years of using the ‘do-nothing’ farming method. He lets his orchard and rice/barley fields grow wild without any pest controls or fertilizers. That’s the basis of it (kinda?) — but what makes this book amazing is that he goes deep into why it works for him. Explaining why he doesn’t have to use chemicals to treat weeds and pests. Into the full circle of life & how to actually grow ‘natural’ food. We always want bigger and better quality & focus on high yields and money. How disconnected we really are growing from nature in agriculture.

If you aren’t into agriculture or learning about the exact ‘whys’ of his experiences from growing rice, barley & citrus on his personal field —- skip to part 2 of the book. I honestly wouldn’t recommend skipping(it holds a lot of useful information), but after part 2 is where I really got interested.

It’s not only about farming though - it also incorporates our health, diet and how basic our knowledge is as humans. It makes you think.

Even this book being written in 1978 - it still holds up to today. We’ve had all this knowledge since then and we still continue to do industrial agriculture and live/eat the way we do. It’s eye opening, for sure.

I’m not completely finished yet - I have about 40 pages left - but that’s what I think so far ☺️ You should definitely give it a try.

[toadstoolgardens]

Green Manuring

Green manuring is the process of growing a crop and adding it to the soil by digging/plowing in or cutting/pulling the crop and dropping it on top. Over time the green matter will rot and worms will drag it into the soil. This improves the quality if your soil by rotting into humus, preventing soil erosion, and retaining nitrogen instead of losing it to the air like bare soil would.

Using Weeds: Annual weeds can be a green manure crop. Many annual weeds pop up after your crops have been harvested. Let them grow and chop them tight to the ground before they seed. All green manure crops should be cut or pulled at the flowering stage or earlier, when they're young and full of protein. This way they'll have enough nitrogen in them to provide for their own rotting down.

Planting Green Manure: Green manure crops can be divided into winter and summer crops, and legumes & non-legumes. Legumes make the best green manure crops because they have bacteria at their roots that take nitrogen from the air, which is added to the soil when they rot.

Grazing Rye: A wonderful winter green manuring crop. Plant it after your harvest, rake the seed in, let it grow all winter, and then dig it in during spring.

Comfrey: A great summer green manuring crop. Plant root cuttings 2 feet apart on weed-free land in the spring and let it grow. Comfrey's deep roots will give heavy yields of nitrogen rich material, phosphate, and other minerals to the soil.

Other great green manuring crops: beans & peas, clovers, lupins, vetch, alfalfa, soybeans, sunflowers, oats, buckwheat.

Seymour, John. The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency. DK Publishing, 2019.

[morphons]

Perennials looking good, but dwarfed by the echiums. Green manure (Vicia sativa) still doing its job of fixing nitrogen and suppressing weeds. Everything will look better when the shed is painted.  March 2021. 

[iamemeraldfox]

My "green manure" plants are growing nicely, but I fear I sowed them too late in the year, so they won't have time to bloom

They'll still serve as fertilizer and protect the soil from erosion during winter months

[violetcarpenterbee]

Happy honeybee snuggling up to some crimson clover

[millenniallust4death]

This technical note aims at encouraging farmers to take a closer look at the roots of legumes and become more familiar with the process of nitrogen fixation and its relevance for organic farming. The note provides some key information on biological nitrogen fixation and describes a simple method for examining nitrogen‐fixing root nodules.

Basically, dig up your legume (clover, beans, peas, etc.) just as it starts to flower. Cut open a few nodules on the roots; the plant is fixing nitrogen if the interior of the nodule is red. See photos and the interpretation of the findings chart in the article for more details.

I’m going to try this.

[microcosmicdreamscapes]

Rye in the Clouds by Misha M. Johnson

Winter rye cover crop grasping for the rising fog on our hill.

© 2017 Misha M. Jonson