Green Manure

Green manure consists of crops that are grown in order to improve the quality of the soil.

Peas, clover, rape, mustard and tares make excellent green manure.

They are grown until they flower, then rolled flat and dug or plowed or dug into the soil.

Green manuring adds humus to the soil.

The soluble plant foods that these plants collect as they are growing are also added to the soil. If the soil were left bare, these plant foods could be washed away by rain.

Legumes, or plants with pods, have microorganisms on their roots that collect nitrogen from the air. When these plants are used as green manure, more nitrogen is added to the soil.

If it is difficult to obtain farmyard manure, or if farmyard manure is prohibitively expensive, green manure makes a very good substitute.

You will not usually see all of the positive effects of green manure on the soil until the second year after it has been plowed in.

You can obtain a large quantity of fertilizer by keeping a compost heap, which should be made of plant waste, weeds, road scrapings and similar

This compost heap should be turned occasionally, and at eachturning, a generous sprinkling of calcium cyanamide should be added.

In this way, a large quantity of valuable fertilizing material can be accumulated in the course of a year.