Winter garden now; summer vegetables later

Why you should make green manure part of your holiday season.|

Sonoma gardeners have a lot to do right now to augment vegetable and flower gardens. And now is the time to toss the appropriate seeds in the soil, work them under, sit back and let the rain (hopefully) grow them. Or watch the birds eat them.

The ideal time for this is November, but many gardeners put it off – so here we go.

A question every gardener should ask: What is green manure?

According to Lydia Constantini, manager of Sonoma Mission Gardens, “Green manure involves the soil incorporation of any field or forage crop while green, or soon after flowering, for the purpose of soil improvement.”

The following is Constantini’s advice on green manure and cover crops.

Green manure is a green organic matter that adds available nitrogen directly and quickly to the soil and new plantings. The general health and soil tilth is maximized for the upcoming growing season. Commonly used green manure plants are fava beans, mustard, vetch and other legume and non-legume crops. Also recommended is a great seed mix for planting appropriately named Organic ?Soil Builder.

As the late winter proceeds, these cold hardy plants thrive and produce leafy mass that will be turned into the soil, producing “green manure.”

A cover crop is any crop grown to provide soil cover, regardless of whether it is later incorporated. Cover crops are grown primarily to prevent soil erosion by wind and water. When cover crops are planted to reduce nutrient leaching following a main crop, they are often termed “catch crops.”

Some of the great plant selections we can grow for this purpose include wildflowers, poppies, calendulas, annual grasses and some of the wild flower blends.

So, your cover crop can be useful and beautiful as well. Remember, you want to plant when the rains start reliably. If not, you will have to irrigate to maintain the viability of your seeds.

Cover crops and green manures can be annual, biennial or perennial herbaceous plants. In addition to providing ground cover and in the case of a legume, fixing nitrogen, they also help suppress weeds and reduce insect pests and diseases and encourage beneficial microbes.

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