Hello, I'm Liam, and welcome to my December update video on growing green manures.
I've created previous videos on growing green manures,
including how I sowed the seed in September, and also how they germinated.
I think now is a good time to create another video, because the green manures have grown
quite strongly over the last few weeks, and also because it's December and the cold weather
is about to arrive. So they may look quite different after the frosts have hit them.
I've put all the videos in a playlist, so I hope they'll be easy to find, but I'll also
link to them below the video. I'm growing five types of green manure including grazing rye,
red clover on its own, a green manure mix that contains white mustard seed, rye grass,
and more clover, field beans, and finally a variety called phacelia tanacetifolia,
which I will call phacelia for short. For more information on the different types
of green manures I'm growing, please see the early videos. But let's get started.
The first bed here is my grazing rye. And it's called grazing rye because often farmers grow
it so that their animals can feed on it overwinter. It has developed excellent
coverage over the entire bed and has not grown that high either. I think it's looking really
good. There are some weeds that I'm going to have to deal with, these ones over here,
and unfortunately a couple have started to flower, but one of the key roles of green manure is to
stop rain leaching away nutrients in the soil. And this ground cover is excellent at preventing that.
And next to my grazing rye I have my green manure mix. I hope this is coming out well
on the camera. I want to show the height of this. It is probably two feet in height. Maybe
a little higher than that even, and I think what is giving it the height is white mustard.
I'll just get in here and show that. So this is what I believe is white mustard,
and as well as white mustard, this green manure mix has ryegrass and some clover, both of which
are much lower growing. And because of the size of the mustard, it's actually quite difficult to see.
I'm really impressed with the green manure mix, well certainly with the white mustard.
The clover in the mix has an important role because that's nitrogen fixing. But to be honest,
looking at the height of the mustard, I'm not sure how much opportunity it's had to grow,
and therefore how much nitrogen fixing it's doing,
but it's certainly doing the job in terms of holding the nutrients in place in the soil.
Now in my last update video, I was a little concerned about the phacelia and how well it was
growing. But since then it has performed really well, and is now giving excellent ground cover.
It may not be as high as the green manure mix.
But I think it's looking healthy, even more healthy perhaps than the green manure mix,
because I don't think it's in danger of running to seed. The plants look well established for winter.
And I'm hoping that there'll be enough time to cut it down, before it goes into flower in the spring.
Of the five types of green manure I sowed, it is probably the red clover that is doing least well,
at least at the moment. I've got good ground cover across the bed, but not quite as good
as the other green manures, and I do have a couple of bare patches, one at the end here,
and one there just in the middle. And the other thing I've noticed is just how low growing this
is compared to the other types of green manure. I've got the distinctive clover leaves here,
and because it is so low growing, some weeds, and actually quite a few weeds,
have been able to establish themselves and grow through the green manure mix.
So even though the red clover is excellent in terms of fixing nitrogen in the soil, it has
given more opportunity to other plants and other weeds to grow. And that's not really a good thing.
But I think the best has been saved to last. These are the field beans.
These look an awfully lot like broad beans, but they won't grow quite as tall. And also the beans
are much smaller, although I've got no intention of letting the plants to flower and form the
bean pods. I want to cut them down well before then. But what I really like is their height,
these are at least a foot high, probably a foot and a half high. So 40 centimetres or so,
and they look really, really healthy. They've got a great colour, upright, strong green leaves.
I think that's in excellent condition. And if I'm sounding excited, that's because I am,
because the great thing about field beans is they are nitrogen fixing. So as well
as providing really good ground cover, they should also add lots of nutrients to the soil.
If I just pan around here to get a better look. I planted the bean plants in five rows across
the bed, and placed each row about six inches apart, and each seed about six inches apart,
and that has been very successful at getting this amount of cover. I'm really happy with that.
Since I've been shooting this video, the sun's going down and the weather's
getting a little colder. I mentioned at the beginning that there's some really
cold weather forecast. Some really quite hard frosts are predicted,
and I'll be interested to see how the green manures stand up to the cold weather.
One extra feature, since I shot the video,
there has been a really hard frost. So I'll quickly show how the plants are looking now.
This is the grazing rye decorated by frost,
although the plants look as though they are suffering.
The mustard does not seem too badly affected, the plants are still upright.
Similarly, the phacelia plants have bowed, but they still look in good condition.
For the red clover, the plants look in good health, but because they're
the lowest of all the crops, they seem to have the most frost on the leaves.
And then finally the field beans, and the tops have definitely fallen over,
they have been affected by the frost. I hope not too badly. I just have to see how they recover.
And that is it, this time. The frost does seem to have made an impact,
and I'm looking forward to seeing how the plants get on over the next few weeks. I
hope to create more videos like this showing how the green manures develop. And if you
want to see those videos, please subscribe to the YouTube channel in the usual way.
Also, I've got a website, AllotmentBook.co.uk, so please visit that if you want to find out more
about what I do down here on the allotment. I hope you liked this video. If you did,
please let me know by hitting the like button or leaving a comment. And as I said,
if you want to see more videos, please subscribe to the channel.