green manure advice again

I'm a newbie myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt ;-)

As I understand green manures, they actually keep moisture in the soil, because they provide ground cover and shade. So rather than compete with the main crop plants, they actually leave the soil better.
I also believe that sweet corn definitely benefits from a ground cover.

Not sure about the legume/brassica question though, but I'll be watching this thread.


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that was exactly what i thought inn the first place...

You would think that they compete for water & nutrients. However, different plants have different needs, and if you plant different species, they are going to take different things out of the soil.

Plus if you have deep rooters like alfalfa, they take water from much lower down in the soil than shallow rooted plants like limnanthes.

Remember also that plants make their own food from sunlight (photosynthesis), they don't take everything out of the soil, plus decaying plants are adding new nutrient to the soil.

As to water in particular, having a permanent mulch, even a living growing mulch of plants, actually prevents water loss from evaporation. Those who have bare brown soil lose a lot of water to evaporation, as the sun bakes the soil dry.

I've proved it this week. All my neighbours are complaining of dry soil, but mine is still wet under my mulches. It's a hard thing to get people to change their methods though, even when the evidence is right under their noses! They just want to carry on with their entrenched beliefs (bare soil good, green manure messy).

My plot doesn't need more water than anyone else's, in fact I water much, much less than those with hosepipes (which provide a whole plot's water needs in just 20 mins).

yes, exactly that

You can make GMs terribly complicated, if you want to have exact quantities of a particular nutrient, or want to follow a very strict crop rotation.

I don't have the time or the interest, tbh. I prefer to follow what nature does as far as I can, so I allow my GMs to self seed all over the place, only pulling them up when I want to plant a crop.
If I was to have a sickly crop, say the sweetcorn all failed, then I would investigate, but as yet I've had no such problems.

I water less, I weed less (than my neighbours) and I don't spend money on fertilisers & sprays. I do hear mutterings about my "messy" plot, but to my eyes a bare brown desert is more offensive, and it's certainly detrimental to our bees & butterflies

Thanks a lot two sheds for your answers. I just bought some poached egg Plant seeds from aldi so I can use it for gm in the bed that the squashed will go later on and then if they still small at that time I will leave them until the squad grow. Plus I plan to put in one bed some legumes and sweetcorn and in between some butternut squash and some red clover or other one. I would love a jungle allotment. Thanks a lot