Healthy Self Reliance
Organic Mulches Inorganic Mulches Cover Crops and Green Manures Mulching is a practice adaptable to nearly all homestead gardens. To mulch is simply to cover the soil around plants with a protective material, organic or inorganic. Using a mulch for your homestead garden can help in many ways. Mulches reduce weed growth by making conditions …
As with most plants in the legume family, Glycine max, soybeans, grow in cooperation with soil-dwelling bacteria. These bacteria live in nodules on the roots of legumes. They take nitrogen gas from the air and convert it to a form plants can use. This process is often referred to as “fixing nitrogen.” When the legume …
Alsike clover is a nitrogen fixing legume from the Fabaceae family, the same as alfalfa, with the same ability to glean nitrogen from the air and store it in the roots, as most legumes are famous for. Alsike clover is rarely used as animal feed, as it grows close to the ground making it hard …
What is Green Manure? A green manure crop is one that can be grown over a season when the bed is not in use, often fall and winter, and later tilled into the soil to improve the fertility. A green manure crop grown over fall and winter also prevents the soil from eroding and compaction …