manure vs Green manure

[Andy Hamilton]

I am debating which to use green manure or farm yard. WIthout a car it will be much easy to carry seeds but will they do as good a job as FYM will?

[supersprout]

Manure adds nutrients and humus to soil. If green manure is fixing nitrogen and/or creating green stuff to add to the soil, IMO it's probably doing a similar job

Green manuring and mulching are different ways of adding nutrients and humus - the lovely Ruth Stout of much mulching fame used to apply manure when she could get it, but eventually stopped and contented herself with mulching and occasionally applying cottonseed meal (whenever she felt like it ). Her reasoning was that the hay she put on the land would have more nutrients than hay that had been processed through an animal

There's a link proposed between tares (vetch) and tomatoes, if you haven't come across it yet you might find it interesting:

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/ ... #msg235392

[hedgewizard]

As I understand it green manure doesn't fertilise the soil as such (apart from some sorts fixing nitrogen) - it improves soil structure and raises humus content, but that's it. Animal manure introduces new nutrients into the bed. If you grow your green manure elsewhere and bring it to your bed then obviously it's new nutrients, but they've got to come from somewhere so eventually you have to feed the manure beds.

The exceptions to this are deep-rooted plants like comfrey, which draw nutrients up that would otherwise be locked in the subsoil.

I think you have to bring material in from outside on a regular basis unless you're composting everything including your own waste... we're starting a six-tyre worm bin this weekend or next, I'll take some photos and let you know how it works. This means we can compost ALL the kitchen waste including cooked stuff with no fear of rats. I hope.

Which reminds me, I must go and post a questionnaire about mulch...