Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Greg and April" <gregandapril@earthlink.net>]

In areas that have reasonable amounts of rain fall, cut and leave in place, 
can be effective.

In other areas, that are dry, it might be more effective to go ahead and 
turn under the first year or two, to jump start the microbiology of the soil 
since then the nitrogen is not lost to the drying / bleaching effects of the 
weather.

Compare it to nice green hay that has lots of nitrogen and straw that has 
little to none.

I have found that in the areas that I have cut and left medium red clover / 
vetch, for better than 5 yrs the soil in still heavy, with only a few worms 
here and there, and still a tendency to dry out if left alone for a few days 
and is about 4 in of mostly dried stems, with some decomposing going on at 
the soil surface, right where it comes into contact with the dry stems.

While in another place, less than 50 ft away, where I have added 6-8 inches 
of organic matter ( old leaves, hay mixed with rabbit manure, and a topping 
of compost ), all at once, and kept damp, there is a major difference in the 
usefulness and the biology of the soil.    The organic matter is breaking 
down and I can't plant without disturbing plenty of worms, and I can go for 
longer than a week between watering.


Greg H.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Bell" <gregbell@znet.com>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 23:01
Subject: [Livingontheland] No-till and green manure?


> If I want to avoid tilling my soil because of various structures and
> organisms I'd be killing, what do I do with my green manure crops (eg.
> alfalfa, vetch) which are usually tilled under for best effect?
>
> ~gb
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