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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] cover crops

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] cover crops
  • Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:39:49 +0100


Sorry to say that this is a very confusing mail to me. If you are low in phosphate you will need to find some source of phosphate. If it is not there plants are not going to get it for you. But if it is not there you should not have abundant red clover.
Manure by the way contains more than just N. Animals recycle all the nutrients they have been fed and there should be more than 60 different elements in that manure and definitely also phosphate.
A word of warning perhaps though for these days there are pesticides mostly used on gras and grain that kill all broad leaved plants. These persist in the manure and if you use that stuff you could sterilize your growing area for more than ten years. Before we bring in manure we do a germination test. Tomato seeds are very sensitive to these pesticides and will not germinate properly when these pesticides are present.

I was never succesful here in Ireland with either buckwheat or butternut squash. Brassicas need heavy feeding and lots of nitrogen and if they don't do well for you may be short while you think you have a lot of it. Or, you may be short of water for brassicas and turnips can not do well without. Or maybe they were planted too close together.
I would not ever dig in any cover crop. I may hoe it down to the ground and then the worms do all the digging that needs doing.
john

Hi all,

While the latest threads on sustainability and whether or not we are all going to die of raised temperatures is fascinating and thought provoking (seriously, I'm learning a lot), could we have some discussion now and again on actual gardening techniques? I'm particularly thinking about putting in a winter cover crop, as opposed to just covering my garden plots with leaves, straw, manure, etc. Now Ken's CD has a list of some cover crops for various applications --to increase nitrogen or to uptake phosphorus, for example-- but I'm wondering what would be the best application for southern New England. I'm a little short on phosphorus; I can get all the manure (N) I want from a couple of local farms, and I have tons of wood ash (K). I look on the list and I see Buckwheat will uptake phosphorus, but it's grown as a spring/summer crop. I don't have so much area for gardening that I can tie up a good chunk for buckwheat (though I could, and would, harvest the seeds). Also Red Clover will accumulate P, but again, as it won't die down in the winter, I'd have to figure out a way to remove it without tilling so I can plant where it grew. Tiny seeds like the Brassicas won't grow in slits cut in the clover, and I've had poor success with seedlings. Mowing closely would work I suppose if it kills the root, but I want to get away from using fossil-fuel power. I've considered planting the buckwheat after harvest so it gets up a bit before frost, but will it have time to grow enough to be worthwhile? I think the list was created with the idea the crops would be tilled under.

I wonder if the low Phosphorus, or high Nitrogen, was the cause of my onions being really small, and my turnips being non-existent. Plenty of greens, just no turnip roots. Brassicas in general, (collards, brussels sprouts, broccoli) just not doing well. On the other hand, I'm having a bumper crop of Butternut squash!

What has worked well for you in New England? Am I better off just using the composted material top dressed as I have been? What about phosphorus? The manures I have access to are horse and llama, which have some phosphate but not a lot. Maybe sheep in a year or so. I am unlikely to be adding urine as was discussed not long ago. I can get phosphate rock, but it's mined so will be a finite, and unsustainable, supply.

Thanks,
Barbara M, Foster, RI

--
"Animals Are A Gift"

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