Lazy garden ... help

[lemay]

Hello,
I just got to know your principles which I like ... having a garden I would like to have one or two answers
1- when to put the hay on the ground ?? November December or wait February March ... !!!
2- on the field before putting the hay is what I can leave my plants from last year (style: bean, tomato, weasels, zucchini ..)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ANSWERS

[Did67]

Hello,


And welcome!

1) If you want to cultivate an area which is already a garden (vegetable patch), I now recommend to first install green manures to capture the maximum of nitrates and also to "exploit" the winter sunshine that these green manures will transform into biomass (nutritious in the spring) ... It is then advisable to crush this before unrolling the layer of hay on a date which lets hope that it will still rain on it (otherwise, this dry hay will siphon part of the reserve in soil water!).

2) If you start from zero (a meadow): mow it level, leave it there and unroll the hay over it as soon as the ground is cold enough (around 12 ° on the surface); it will begin to "choke" (in fact, deprive of light) the grasses (herbs); if the soil is cold, there will not be much nitrification.

3) Yes, of course. All "leftovers" are excellent foods for living soil organisms. You are then in case 1) above: leave these vegetables, which will play the role indicated; do not uproot them; sow green manure around it, to plug the "holes".

[Julienmos]

B
1) If you want to cultivate an area which is already a garden (vegetable patch), I now recommend to first install green manures to capture the maximum of nitrates and also to "exploit" the winter sunshine that these green manures will transform into biomass (nutrient in spring) ...'to crush this before unrolling the hay layer on a date that gives hope that it will rain again (otherwise, this dry hay will siphon some of the soil water!).

by "crush" I guess you mean just flatten? and not grind?

[Did67]

Effectively. I go to the simplest: my hay roll compresses all that; hop, I pass, crush you ... But a grinding rotofil can be considered, if we want to facilitate the task of unrolling hay ...

[lemay]

Hello again,
Sorry but I did not get my answer ...
1- when to put the hay on the ground ?? November December or wait February March ... !!!
2- what is "green manure"
thanks again for the answers
cordially

[Did67]

Oh? Am I wrong with my language?

I resume and simplify:

- if it's a meadow: soon, as soon as the soil has cooled down
- if it is already a vegetable garden (therefore "cultivated" land), then it is better to let the leftover vegetables grow, or to sow "green manures" (these are fast-growing crops that are sown between two crops. , and left crushed on the ground - some incorporate it); and then, I put the hay somewhere in February at home ...

[lemay]

THANKS SUPER SYMPA .... I ADOPT !!!

[to be chafoin]

I resume and simplify:

- if it's a meadow: soon, as soon as the soil has cooled down
- if it is already a vegetable garden (therefore "cultivated" land), then it is better to let the leftover vegetables grow, or to sow "green manures" (these are fast-growing crops that are sown between two crops. , and left crushed on the ground - some incorporate it); and then, I put the hay somewhere in February at home ...

Why this difference between meadow and vegetable garden at the level of the establishment of the hay: because the grasses take longer to "destroy" under the hay?

[Moindreffor]

I resume and simplify:

- if it's a meadow: soon, as soon as the soil has cooled down
- if it is already a vegetable garden (therefore "cultivated" land), then it is better to let the leftover vegetables grow, or to sow "green manures" (these are fast-growing crops that are sown between two crops. , and left crushed on the ground - some incorporate it); and then, I put the hay somewhere in February at home ...

Why this difference between meadow and vegetable garden at the level of the establishment of the hay: because the grasses take longer to "destroy" under the hay?

not just that a vegetable garden potentially has a larger nitrogen reserve than a meadow, so you have to pump the end-of-season nitrogen into green manure to get it out of the soil and not leach out. the rains
when the hay is put in place, the time that the green manure is going to decompose will be the first vegetables to recover the nitrogen so no leached nitrogen that goes into the water table or the creek of the corner

[Did67]

From my point of view, it's both:

a) sufficiently destroy the carpet that forms a "grass" of meadow before the following season, while in a vegetable garden, according to the use, I just remove the stems recalcitrant (eg cabbage) and only where I want to sow (therefore crisscross); so we can intervene later, while having an easily usable location if we only have weeds or green manures, in a vegetable garden.

b) yes, the question of nitrates is less prominent in a meadow

And even a little more :

c) is added the fact that the period between the last vegetables of year n and the first of year n + 1 can be used to photosynthesize, therefore nourish the system, if we have functional green plants ( it does not matter whether it is "leftover vegetables", weeds or green manures - same fight, it photosynthesizes a little!); hay does not photosynthesize! It certainly covers. But the "biomass" is imported from elsewhere ...

The aim is to reduce the amount of imported biomass (hay). In connection with what we have just mentioned elsewhere: perhaps, in the long run, I will drift towards a system that is too rich, bringing too many elements through the hay. With the same risks as conventional (chemical) agriculture: pollution by nitrates, too fragile "doped" plants ...