I know nothing about them short of what I have read. Here is what I understand: Green manure crops are grown through the fall and winter and then tilled under to compost over late winter, early spring. What I need to know: Can I do this on a small scale with a common crop? Basically taking all my containers and dump them into one large container, planting the cover crop and then composting tilling it under for next year to have better soil?
That is a very interesting idea! I have never heard of doing that . I try to use new potting mix each year. The problem I could see is if there are any pests and/or diseases in your container mix, it can contaminate it all, plus there are always left over roots from old plants in it. I have only heard of growing a cover crop in the ground, and that being mostly in the vegetable garden.
The more I think about it the more sense it would make to set up a larger area/container to grow a cover crop and simply compost it. It should keep growing back all year and easily provide enough greens to balance the yard waste and make some nice nitrogen rich compost. I also wonder if there is a way to sterilize used potting mix so disease would be killed as well as roots and seeds from unwanted plants.
I have read about people putting their potting mix into the oven and baking it to sterilize it. I don't even know if it works. That sounds like a whole lot of trouble and mess to me. :-?
My trees and grasses are kept in the same pots for multiple years and do fine. I always dump any used potting soil into my beds (usually flower beds). Vegetable starts of course have lots of potting soil and that just goes into the garden ground. I look at potting soil as organic matter that is somewhat spent. It is usually made up of compost, vermiculite, peat and fertilizer. If you are short on green matter and want to give it a try I don't see why you couldn't plant a cover crop in pots. Any of the legumes (beans, peas, are nitrogen fixing, and when adding spent potting soil back to the soil it seems it would be more healthy, plus you could eat any vegies produced. Remember that pots are a very limited growing environment and most vegies take a lot of nutrients. The only soil I never add back to the garden is soil from potted tomatoes. Once I had bloosom end rot and never wanted to provide a home for that again. Remember leaves are one of the best organic matter sources that encourage worms (which provide worm castings) and break down fairly fast in our climate. They can really enrich the soil and are abundant in the fall if you want to start a garden bed. I've used cardboard to start new beds with additional organic (look up lasagna gardening)matter. If you are only doing pots starting your own compost pile or bin might be worthwhile. sorry to be so wordy...any ideas are always worth a try. Let us know how it turns out for you.
Cardboard huh, I am composting with worms with that but never thought of using it in a compost pile. I really just want to try and find a way I can create a renewable source of potting soil so I don't spend $100+ a year on it. My wife keeps telling me to get one of those composter bins, the plastic round ones with the holes so maybe I will do that. I am also looking at getting a large 250 gallon plastic bin to compost with but not sure about doing that. I really need to find the right bin to make it easier to turn it and make sure it doesn't get too hot but still works right. Jewell, that information helped a lot! I am gonna be starting a bunch of flowers and the perennials will be in the pots for a long time. I also have 2 roses and 2 apple trees in pots that are going to get an upgrade to larger pots and a big boost in nutrients really soon. If I try the green manure method I will let everyone know how it goes. Some of those inexpensive tote bins from Home Depot could work really well for growing cover crops and then tilling them under and the letting them go again. Maybe a summer crop tilled under then a winter crop tilled under for use in the spring. Cold have some extremely rich soil doing it that way IF I get it to work.
I was thinking of using cardboard laying on the ground to smoother weeds and unwanted seeds and then planting through it. That worked really good for me when starting new beds. For pots it might make a good mulch also, but you would have to play with the right amounts. Here is a government blurb, but you should be able to find a rich source of information by googling composting paper products http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/organics/pubs/fact.pdf I use lots of shredded paper/cardboard in my garden for mulch, so for compost it should work ok also, but would have to balance your other ingredients or think about using worms for composting. (For farming red worms shredded paper is a major component)
