A quiet week & pondering green manures.

Last week was quiet in the garden. Firstly I was away for a couple of days and then shortly after returning I managed to pull a muscle in my back quite badly, so I had to rest up for the remainder of the week. It wasn’t easy to be able to look out at the garden but not touch. I daren’t even try sowing seeds as it hurt to twist or bend my back.

Even poor Mr Elvie, one of my feline supervisors, had a similar issue, with an inflammed paw, so we were both on forced rest.

I did manage to hobble out to gather some garden produce daily, including some purple sprouting brocolli (see pic above) from the main garden and some of the last of the kales along with some beetroot leaves and chickweed from the tunnel.

One of the sweeter moments was the delivery of some lovely rotted horse manure from a good friend nearby. Mind you, even though I’d been so excited about it coming, I still haven’t got to properly inspect it yet. It came at night (thats when the trailer was available), so I didn’t get to examine it closely and we had to cover it up straight away as it was due to rain the next day. I know it will be wonderful, but I’m still desperate to have a rummage through it – I think some of it will need to rot a bit more while other parts are ready to go on the vegetable beds already. Here’s a sneak peek. I’m sure my back will be healed enough for me to go out and explore it properly very soon.

One of the silver linings of having to rest my back is that it reminded me to practice excellent self care. I already do a little yoga and qi gong and look after myself well, but having a need for more focused self care resulted in me revisiting some energy techniques that I had forgotten about, which were fun and really beneficial. It’s also spurred me on to practice my qi gong and yoga on a more consistent basis. So, now I’m more inspired to keep doing more of these beneficial practices so my back stays strong and supple and so I stay on tip top form. That way I’ll be in fine fettle to tend to the garden’s needs.
In the meantime, Mr Leo is supervising my lack of sowing seeds in the potting shed. Point taken, I’ll be back in action soon.

During my enforced period of rest, I did wonder if being rather zealous in my mulching activities, including ferrying compost up to the garden, had contributed to my back issue (I normally never get any back problems).
That possibility got me thinking about using green manures. These are living plants that are grown in situ to mulch and fertilize the soil – such as clovers, buckwheat and phacelia (see below).

When grown directly in the vegetable beds you just have to cut them down and let them rot into the soil (you can also dig them in). That require a lot less handling than using compost or horse manures that have to be barrowed around. So, in terms of minimum input and maximum output green manures would certainly be a valuable addition to my soil conditioning regime.
Whilst they probably wouldn’t add a lot of bulk, not like compost, they would suppress weeds and add valuable nutrients, so I will be looking to add some between crops / over winter. I’m also considering growing some crops through a living mulch of low growing green manure, such as clover. Sure nature has already given me an example of this in the tunnel where I have some chickweed that is growing beside some kale and a few californian poppies and calendula have self seeded in there as well.