GROW YOUR OWN NITROGEN
(Page 3 of 4)
March/April 1981
By Edward Null
During the first year, you'll pretty much leave the patch be . . . and simply mow the clover (clip only the top) in late August. Then, early in the following spring, dig in the crop, and — in a few weeks — plant a nitrogen-loving vegetable in its place.
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Alfalfa, queen of the organic farm, can also have a niche in your back yard. Use it as you would red clover. Alfalfa will make a stand without a nurse crop, and may even be fall-sown in parts of the South. Since this ancient crop (it was first raised in Persia before 700 B.C.) is a perennial, you could establish a semipermanent "mulch field" by sowing an unused strip of lawn in alfalfa, and harvesting three or four crops of soil cover per season for several years. Then, when the legume thins out, plant the spot in corn!
A champion fertilizer crop, alfalfa can fix as much as 250 pounds of nitrogen per acre (depending on weather and soil conditions). Furthermore, the USDA is working on strains of this plant that may be able to provide 500 pounds per acre.
Alfalfa will fit into a rotation plan very well, but it should stay for at least two years (that is, one year longer than red clover) to assure a maximum nitrogen yield. In order to "justify" such a long residence in a small garden, I plan to try "plugging" this year's sweet corn right into the alfalfa I planted last year. I should get a crop of sugary ears and a lush legume cover at the same time.
THE SPECIALISTS
Red clover and alfalfa are both excellent soil builders, but they may not be right for every situation. For example, is your soil mostly hardpan? Does your acreage suffer from badly eroded spots? Are you faced with the task of improving a plot of poorly drained, stiff clay? If you have those problems, you need sweet clover instead! Its powerful five- to eight-foot roots can crack hardpan, and it'll grow in places where few other plants can survive, even in the cracks of a road's shoulder. (Its only requirement is a pH of 6.5 or a bit above.) Furthermore, the "wonder clover" can provide 170 pounds of nitrogen per acre.
