Green Manuring
Green manuring is the process of growing a crop and adding it to the soil by digging/plowing in or cutting/pulling the crop and dropping it on top. Over time the green matter will rot and worms will drag it into the soil. This improves the quality if your soil by rotting into humus, preventing soil erosion, and retaining nitrogen instead of losing it to the air like bare soil would.
Using Weeds: Annual weeds can be a green manure crop. Many annual weeds pop up after your crops have been harvested. Let them grow and chop them tight to the ground before they seed. All green manure crops should be cut or pulled at the flowering stage or earlier, when they're young and full of protein. This way they'll have enough nitrogen in them to provide for their own rotting down.
Planting Green Manure: Green manure crops can be divided into winter and summer crops, and legumes & non-legumes. Legumes make the best green manure crops because they have bacteria at their roots that take nitrogen from the air, which is added to the soil when they rot.
Grazing Rye: A wonderful winter green manuring crop. Plant it after your harvest, rake the seed in, let it grow all winter, and then dig it in during spring.
Comfrey: A great summer green manuring crop. Plant root cuttings 2 feet apart on weed-free land in the spring and let it grow. Comfrey's deep roots will give heavy yields of nitrogen rich material, phosphate, and other minerals to the soil.
Other great green manuring crops: beans & peas, clovers, lupins, vetch, alfalfa, soybeans, sunflowers, oats, buckwheat.
Seymour, John. The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency. DK Publishing, 2019.
