Growing Green Manure: A Fertilizer from the Garden

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As Coleman's planting of corn undersown with sweet clover shows, gardeners can have their food and soil fertility too.
As Coleman's planting of corn undersown with sweet clover shows, gardeners can have their food and soil fertility too.
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Eliot Coleman is the farm manager of Milton Academy's Mountain School Program in Vermont and the author of The New Organic Grower. 
Eliot Coleman is the farm manager of Milton Academy's Mountain School Program in Vermont and the author of The New Organic Grower. 
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The garden is most easily visualized as a series of long strips, five feet wide and 100 feet long. Row and spacing width varies with the kind of crop being grown.
The garden is most easily visualized as a series of long strips, five feet wide and 100 feet long. Row and spacing width varies with the kind of crop being grown.
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In Coleman's eight-year crop rotation, the garden is always growing a market crop or a green manure crop—or both!
In Coleman's eight-year crop rotation, the garden is always growing a market crop or a green manure crop—or both!

Eliot Coleman, farm manageof MiltoAcademy’s Mountain School Program in Vermonthas been a leading practitioner of organic growing for 20 yearsThifall bringthpublication of his first book, The New Organic Grower–atreatise of grow­ing techniquethat‘s thbest market­-gardening guide we’ve seen in manyearColeman’s book hamuch useful information that can be adapteto home gardens as well, such as the following excerpt on innovative ways to combinboth soil-building and edible crops.

Not all crops are for sale. Green
manure crops are grown not for cash but to contribute to the care and feeding of the
soil. A
green-manure crop in­corporated into the soil improves fertility, but the eventual benefits are even greater.

  • Published on Sep 1, 1989
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