Green Manures | Garden First Aid Kit | Learn for best Productivity | Green Side Up
Green Manures are a must for any serious gardener, there are many types that will grow in a wide range of soil conditions and areas. They can help feed your soil and so your plants, but they can mulch too along with helping stop disease, they truly are worth knowing about and for all gardeners to have in their toolbox.
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Green Manures | Garden First Aid Kit | Learn for best Productivity | Green Side Up
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29 Comments
Flying there Steve 👍🌱👍
Trying my broad beans in home-made compost for the first time fingers crossed
Nice one Steve. I don't use green manures myself as my beds are never empty long enough really. I was toying with trying mustard for its soil fumigation properties if I ever leave a bed fallow.
That was a very interesting and informative video Steve . I'm growing field beans for the 2nd year and found them a great source of winter greens for stir frys. Birdsfoot trefoil sounds like a good idea, might give that a go. It's all food for thought and a good learnings curve. Once again thanks fir your 1st class videos. Will be watching Pottymouth club tonight love it.
Stay safe
Nice job, Steve, from Windermere, Florida zone 9b USA 🇺🇸
You are so close to your next big step 👍
Great video and information 👩🌾👌
I'm very interested in trying green manures, thanks for this video steve
Given the price of fertiliser and new compost, these solutions are certainly worth a go. I'll give the field beans a try to provide some entertainment over the winter
Will be great to watch your future use and planting of green manures and compost making my own knowledge starts and ends with the field beans and for compost making i really have started making a big effort i started using the unlimited access to grass cuttings and fallen leaves from work and will be able to top all my beds up for free this year and should only need to purchase for seed sowing which is a massive saving looking forward to seeing you and the team on the Potty mouth garden club tonight
Re. sowing beans as a green manure. I think it's worth noting that the bean plants will store nitrogen in little white nodules on their roots, and they use this to aid in the production of flowers and (if pollinated) the bean pods. This means that you need to cut down your green manure at the first sign of flower formation; the longer you leave it, the more depleted the nodules will become.
If you buy your green manure seed in bulk, it may seem like you'll never use all of it because there'll likely be a date on the pack saying how long the seed should remain viable. Seed companies usually pick a viability percentage that's a balance between practicality (and profit) for them and a sufficiently high germination rate so as not to disappoint their customers. For example, if the pack you buy today says the seed will be viable until Dec 2024, that means you might get something reliable like a 70-90% germination rate when you sow your green manure in November 2023 and 2024, but don't throw away any seed left over after the expiry date. The following year the remaining seed might still be 40-60% viable, which you can measure by doing a germination test in, say, October 2025: sow two dozen seeds in a seed tray in the greenhouse and see how many germinate within a fortnight or so. If only half germinate, sow twice as many in November as you did in previous years. You were making a note in your garden journal of what weight of seeds you sowed each year, weren't you? 😄
Thanks Steve I learn something new every time I watch you, what a great video I think I can see where you going with this, to be self sufficient with compost, and feeding your beds at the same time, I shall be looking at green manure now
I tried some field beans last year, but had poor germination & then the pigeons ate them! 🤣 … at least someone benefitted! I will try again this year & put some netting over them 👍
Hi Steve, I have sown field beans in October and are growing well. I grew them last year & have done well 🙂 what a great video with lots of information about green manure. Thanks for sharing and take care 🙂
😆My other body is a Temple.😆
€2/kg for field beans from Fruithill Farms in Ireland. Very cheap and well worth putting in the ground over winter in any empty beds.
Very interesting Steve, what I don't understand is I can grow veg but I have zero worm's, 🥰
I'm growing field beans second year trying to grow it more this year to help me have more greens in the earlier months of next year to get my compost bin going quicker
Thank you Steve: very informative! I have a question; why should you not use broadbeans as green manure instead of fieldbeans?
all the views but only 15 comments well heres 16…..thanks for sharing your great tips….
Very interesting stuff as ever. You made me laugh when you described yourself at the end of 'waffling' as it occured to me earlier in the video that most presenters would have needed an autocue and a weeks preparation to deliver the concise content that you do 👍
thanks for the information Steve
Green Manure is the most expensive seed I buy, because of the volume I need to use. I've set aside an area to grow my green manures for seed this year. I'm figuring I will get seed for about 50x the area that I dedicate to seed raising, and the field beans I can also use in the kitchen if I manage to grow too much seed! I've pre-chitted my field beans in the warmth of the kitchen in the hope that will win the race with the mice – no idea if mice will still eat them, the ones I have done so far have all come up, but it should shorten the time they are on their menu by a week or so.
Spill the beans….. where did you buy them from? Can’t find any well priced 😢
I'm growing field beans in some of my empty garden beds but i will let them pod and eat the beansxx
What’s happened to your new poly tunnel????
Your ‘waffling’ is valuable information! Thanks for sharing!
I’m looking to grow haricot beans next year… have you ever grown them? Any tips?
Thank you again for yet more useful information 😀
Worth noting that ANY type of dry bean or pea will work if field beans or peas are unavailable or too expensive. Sometimes a bag of beans from a grocery store might be just as useful. Germination rates aren't critical, just sow a bit thicker if the seed is old. Same is true for feedstore whole oats or barley or chicken grain in spring. Just get something in there.
You're a great teacher. Just sayin'.. Keep doing these. 🙂
From where did you purchase the Field Beans seeds please Steve?