Content
- Green manure with clover
- What is meant by a green manure
- Positive effects of growing clover on the ground
- Work the clover into the ground
- Tips
Clover as a catch crop improves soil quality
Green manure with clover
The various types of clover, with their adaptability to rather cool and humid climates, are not only an interesting food crop for cattle and other farm animals. Clover species such as red and white clover are also suitable as green manure for their own garden due to their special properties.
What is meant by a green manure
First of all, the term green manure sounds like a substitute for other, "artificial" types of fertilizer. In the first instance, the topic of green manuring is not or at least not just a question of feeding nutrients into the soil substrate at a specific location. As a rule, green manure has such a positive effect on the growth prospects of the following crops, because it has the following effects without much effort:
Positive effects of growing clover on the ground
If you sow clover in your garden as an intermediate seed or for long-term soil recovery, then you decide for a representative of the so-called legumes. These have the special feature that the nodule bacteria sitting at their roots can bind nitrogen from the atmosphere and enter it into the soil. So can be dispensed artificial fertilizer preparations with high nitrogen content. In addition, in the red and white clover, the deep and finely branched roots also provide for a thorough loosening and better ventilation of compacted soils. The protein-rich green mass of the clover is not only a valuable food for many pets, but is also theoretically edible for humans.
Work the clover into the ground
Since the red and the white clover are hardy in most situations, these types of clover are well suited for a long-term soil improvement or as a relatively firm turf replacement. For a green manure in the raised bed, for example, the clover can be sown after harvest until August. The plants should, however, be mulched in the fall, since the soil is otherwise available in spring only about May for the cultivation of a subsequent crop. A possible alternative offers the so-called Persian clover (Trifolium resupinatum), as this is not hardy and thus decomposed by itself in a timely manner.
Tips
The cultivation of clover as an intermediate seed not only enables effective green manure, but also provides many bees, bumblebees and butterflies with an additional nectar source.