Growing Vegetables
Alliaceae
This is the Onion family name and it includes Garlic, Leeks, Onions, Shallots and Chives. It can have pride of place in its own pl...
Garlic, Leek, Onion, Shallot, Chive | Allotment
An area of ground where people hire land and grow fruit, veg and flowers. If you don’t have one youcan still have a nose around th...
| Apiaceae
The family of Carrot, Parsnip, Celeriac, Celery, Fennel, Parsley. They prefer an open, sandy, free draining soil - not heavily man...
Carrots, Parsnips, Celeriac, Celery, Fennel, Parsley |
Green Manure
(sheet composting)These plants are grown to nourish and protect the
soil rather than in their own right. Once grown they are dug back into the
soil, or put on the
compost heap. Think of them as a natural blanket/nutrient cover for your
soil. In addition to stopping nutrients washing away, and weeds getting a foothold, some fix nitrogen and others have deep
roots which break up the
soil and bring up nutrients which will be fed back in to the surface when you cut the crop down.
Some fall into various
crop rotation groups, so try to make sure you don’t mess up this cycle. For instance, mustard grows really quickly, so can cover an area for a short or long time, but it is susceptible to club root, so treat it as a
brassica.
This means you should use it after your main
brassica crop, so if there’s a problem the green
manure will show it up. (See more detail under specific fruit and veg type pages).
Sheet Composting
(green manure)A method of spreading undecomposed
organic materials over the
soil's surface, then working them into the
soil to decompose, rather than piling them and spreading the resulting
compost. (see also Green
Manure)