Green manure is good for the garden

Green manure helps to cap winter carbon dioxide production, improves the fertility of your soil and is good for wildlife. It helps to prevent soil erosion, the leaching of nutrients and to capture winter sunlight and carbon dioxide and convert it into biomass.

Yet it has never been an important part of British gardening, which has relied heavily on animal manure, animal by-products and compost.

Green manures are simply any plants grown as temporary ground cover to improve fertility and are either incorporated straight into the soil or composted elsewhere. They are always incorporated as seedlings and are never allowed to flower. So why not use the vacant parts of your garden or plant them in between your vegetable rows?

You can use any plants that grow during our winter season. Traditionally they are sown as soon as you have any bare ground left after the growing season until the first frosts begin. Any crops that survive the winter are usually killed off by thick mulches of compost or digging them in before you plant your new crops. The more fibrous green manures may require up to four weeks to break down in the soil while more succulent plants take less time. 

Use land cress and lambs lettuce as green manures and eat the leaves during the times when water cress and lettuce are expensive. Also use limnanthes (poached egg plant). So by green manuring we can help the soil, benefit insects and birds, feed ourselves and sequester some carbon dioxide. That’s not bad, is it?