Tonight I thought I'd talk about green manures. Green manures are fast growing plants sown to cover bare soil. They're often used in vegetable gardens but more commonly now in actually cutting patches. Now what they do is their foliage smothers weeds and their roots prevent soil erosion, so it's perfect. When dug into the ground, while still green, they return valuable nutrients to the soil and just improve its overall structure. We grow two lots here at the farm. We grow Comfrey and we also grow Phacelia, which we absolutely love. We discovered it a few years ago and now we've got it on three or four areas of our land. We love it because it actually is a beautiful flower and attracts a massive amount of bumblebees. And then obviously it's a green manure, so it's perfect. It's also very tolerant to climate and grows a lot. We've found now even though in this cold spell, that it's growing really well. So usually green manures are grown in late summer or autumn, and they take up all any nutrients that are left to prevent them being washed away by the winter rain. So then the following spring, you take it back into the soil and they release the nutrients back into soil. What's not to love about that? 

So let's talk about how you sow the seeds. Now honestly, with Phacelia I just spread them all over the patches. I didn't rake it in. I just left it. I made sure that it was moist before I started so I wet the soil, I threw the seeds in literally and then it grows. So once you need that land for growing, you chop the foliage down and you leave it to wilt. You can then take the plants into about 25 centimetres, 10 inches into the soil. And after you take it in, you need to leave it for two weeks. So the reason I decided to talk about this today was because we decided here that we would try growing some green manures that we haven't tried before. So I've ordered those this evening. 

I've ordered buckwheat This is a half-hardy annual. It's grown in spring so perfect now spring and summer and it's best sown in April to August. It can be left for two or three months after sowing and it grows well on nutrient poor soils. So those of you who have nutrient poor soils it might be worth to look at buckwheat. We're also looking at Bitterblue Looping. This is a perennial flowering lagoon and it suits light Sandy acid soils. So in March to June, I leave for two or three months before digging it in. We're doing a Clover as well. This perennial legume can either be dug in after two or three months or left in for one or two years. It's good for wet acid soils. So good to have a look at your soil and say okay, well what's my soil and what will be the best? 

Crimson clover. This perennial legume is good for light soils. Again, you can show this from March to August and leave in for two or three months up to flowering. Another one we've ordered is Essex Red Clover. This hardy perennial legume overwinters well and can be left in for two or three months or for one or two years after sewing. It's good for loamy soils. And that is sown March to August. So if you've got a patch this year that you're not going to be growing on, why not try some green manures? My number one starter would be Phacelia. We could do later sowings of this annual crop. So when you finish this year, you can then plant it and you can overwinter in mild areas. Now that's been okay for us. We have overwintered Phacelia. If that's difficult for where you are, you can generally sow it in April to August. And like I said, its flowers are really pretty. And you can use those flowers in cut flower arrangements. 

The one thing you have to be aware of is that a dense copy of green, which is what we've got in four parts of our land can suppress. Although green manure can suppress plant growth, it also encourages those little slugs and snails. So you just need to be aware of that when you're doing it. We've never had an issue, I have to say. So what we want to do is we want to test green manures here for you. So we've ordered the seeds tonight. And then we're going to plant them and we're going to do some trials and test them. But as a thing for you, if you've got some bare soil now, I'll give Phacelia a try and I'd be interested to see which ones you think are great and which ones you've tried in the past. 

So many thanks for listening. That's our whistlestop tour to green manures. More to come later in the course. Thank you.

This has been the Cut Flower podcast. Please do join us on our Facebook group, the Cut Flower Collective for lots more hints and tips. Thank you.