SORT OUT YOUR SOIL

A practical guide to Green Manures and Cover Crops

Green manures are a well known way to add humus to soil to increase fertility so that chemical fertiliser use can be reduced.

A green manure is a crop grown to improve the crops. Once grown, they are usually incorporated into the soil shortly before sowing the next cash crop. With rising nitrogen fertiliser prices and an ever-increasing requirement to farm in an environmentally sustainable way, green manures are fast becoming a viable way to cut input costs, add fertility and improve the soil.
 

Natural debate: Do forests grow better without our help?

When Susan Cook-Patton was doing a postdoc in forest restoration at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland seven years ago, she says she helped plant 20,000 trees along Chesapeake Bay. It was a salutary lesson. “The ones that grew best were mostly ones we didn’t plant,” she remembers. “They just grew naturally on the ground we had set aside for planting. Lots popped up all around. It was a good reminder that nature knows what it is doing.”

PlantAge Biovegan

Veganic farming means that we implement the guidelines for organic farming and go one step further: For ethical and ecological reasons , we consciously refrain from using animal fertilisers such as manure, horn meal, liquid manure and other slaughterhouse waste.

We use compost, mulch or other vegetable fertiliser such as malt germ pellets or grass clover . Also, green manure and crop rotation are important and natural ways to give the plants everything they need to grow.

Lively lupins

Lupins are of great potential interest to the vegan organic grower. The foliage is not dense but the long roots fix nitrogen and break up and aerate the ground bringing up nutrients from deep in the soil. They are of special use to those working light sandy soils as they like these conditions and the roots stabilise the topsoil overwinter, helping to prevent rain and wind erosion. Typically, lupins fix 25% more free nitrogen than clovers and 28% more than peas and beans. This is a very hardworking green manure!

Piers Warren's Gardening Tips for November

It might feel like the garden is starting to sleep for a few months but there’s still plenty to do…

Garlic, onion sets and shallots can be planted out now, protect with fleece if you are in a frost-prone area.
Support Brussels sprouts plants with canes as they will be getting top-heavy now.
Prune fruit bushes including blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants and gooseberries and now is also a good time to take hardwood cuttings from these.
Plant out new bare-root fruit trees and bushes.
Dig up Jerusalem artichokes and store the tubers in boxes of compost. Cut up the stalks and add to your compost heap. 
Sow broad bean seeds under cover.

Willow Mulch for Fruit Trees 

Wouldn't we all love to find a magic remedy to help our fruit trees become healthier and more pest and disease resistant? Well, scientists in the UK may have discovered that magic remedy and it comes in the form of single-source willow mulch.

Farming for a Future

Our panel will discuss how farming can create carbon sinks and revive nature as well as answering questions sent in by the audience.

Thursday November 26th
7pm-7.45 UK Time

Streaming live on Facebook and Youtube

Send your questions to: events@veganorganic.net