shiukopuppy's Blog

The soil in my garden has been neglected for years and is too compacted to grow anything. We made veggie beds by digging in several lots of compost, gypsum, mushroom compost, pea straw and animal manures. They are slowly improving.

The lawn is not growing, there is just dirt.. I decided to concentrate on a small patch of lawn - only a few meters squared - and make that a symbolic lawn (I'm also worried about erosion). I applied gypsum a few times, but I also decided to add a green manure to the soil to break it up a bit.

What I have found out about green manures: they are dug into the soil while still healthy, some add nitrogen to the soil, keep the soil active, improve its structure and suppress weed growth. Oats and mustard don't add nitrogen but this was all that I could plant at this time of year. Here is a picture of my young oats and mustard growing where I will sow lawn seed in the spring!