September Gardening Tips

September Gardening Article
by Neil DeWitt

September is one of my favorite months as a gardener. Fall is just like spring with its cooler crisp mornings and evenings, but without all the wind! An occasional rain is also a real blessing in the fall. It is a time when we can thank our Heavenly Father for all that He has provided for us over the course of the summer through our garden labors. It is a time to continue enjoying the harvest of crops. It can also be a time when we can restart our garden with fall and winter vegetable crops. And, can even be the time when we begin the process of building-up our garden soil to become better than ever once the weather turns warm/hot next spring/summer. The best preparation of your garden plot can come over the winter months through the use of “green manure” crops. We see examples of this with our local cotton farmers every winter when they plant a grain crop, often, not for harvest as grain, but as fertilizer for the next year’s cotton crop.

A “green manure” crop can turn both heavy hard clay and lifeless sandy soils into a garden soil that is full of nutrients, easy to work, and one that retains moisture well. It is possible to improve any soil and build it into a soil that is compatible with vegetable gardening. However, this is not always something that you can do overnight through the use of commercial fertilizers and soil supplements. Neither will mixing one huge pile of organic matter into your soil one time accomplish it. This may certainly help in the short term, but it won’t last. Organic matter is the key to creating a rich productive soul. But, you must realize that it is always temporary. From the moment you mix organic matter into your soil, you start to lose it. Earthworms and countless other soil creatures start breaking it down into usable plant food and soil-improving humus. In our hot temperatures, they will work their way through organic matter in no time, and if you don’t have another helping ready for them, they’ll die or leave the area in search of food sources elsewhere. And once you have a big crew of worms and other beneficial critters working for you in your garden, you don’t want to “lay them off” so they move on to “greener pastures”, but you want to keep them well fed with organic matter as in a good winter crop of green manure.

Any green plant that is spaded or tilled back into the soil can be called green manure. Certain crops can be grown specifically to be turned under, back into the soil while they are still green for the purpose of serving up a host of organic matter. Alfalfa, buckwheat and annual ryegrass are a few examples from amongst a long list of possible green manure crops.

There are many advantages to be found in utilizing a green manure crop. First, green manure is easier to use than animal manure as a fertilizer and soil conditioner. Five or six pounds of seed can produce tons of green organic matter. Animal manure is usually full of weed seeds that you may end up fighting in your garden for years. It takes a lot more animal manure to add a significant amount of fertilizer to soil as compared with using green manure. Green manure crops really help sandy soils to better hold their nutrients and moisture which are trapped by the organic matter close the surface for better utilization by your vegetable plants. Green manure crops provide a tremendous amount of organic material for earthworms and the bacteria in the soil to break-down for food. Green manure provides a literal feast in your soil. When tilled into heavy, clay soil, green manure crops improve and condition the soil. This keeps the clay-laden soil from baking down and crusting over as much, thus making it easier to “work” or till. Use of a green manure crop over the winter months helps to reduce the loss of topsoil due to erosion and our heavy spring winds. A thick green manure crop helps to choke out weeds, smothering them by blocking out the sunlight they need to thrive. Three or four successive years of winter green manure crops will almost wipe-out persistent problem weeds in your garden. Green manure crops act as an insulating blanket to your soil, keeping the ground cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Winter months are when earthworms are most active. Having an insulating blanket of green manure allows the worms to “feed” closer to the surface of the soil where they will produce a rich store of nutrients for next year’s crops, right where young plant have full access to these nutrients. And a final benefit to the use of green manure is the fact that these crops typically send their roots much deeper into the soil than do most vegetable plants, thus bringing valuable deeper nutrients up to feed the plant when they get put back into the topsoil as the green manure crop is tilled prior to the time when you plant your next year’s garden.

One of the easiest green manure crops to use in our area is annual ryegrass. Be sure you purchase the “annual” variety of seed rather than the “perennial” seed. Also, make sure you are getting ryegrass seed, not rye seed, which is a grain. This seed is inexpensive, easy to grow, easy to obtain, and it will grow as a rich green crop throughout the winter months. This is the same grass crop that is grown in our area as a “winter lawn” when it is “over seeded” on turf lawns.

Use 2 to 3 lbs. of annual ryegrass seed per 1,000 sq. ft. of garden for green manure. This seed is usually less than $1 per lb. The best time to plant this crop is in late September through the end of October. To plant, spade, plow, or till your soil to prepare a good seedbed. Turning the soil to a depth of 6-8 inches is sufficient. Rake the seedbed. Spread a little commercial fertilizer such as a 5-10-10 or a 10-10-10 at a rate of about 2 lbs. per 100 sq. ft. Use your rake to mix this fertilizer into the soil. Broadcast the ryegrass seed evenly over the area, then finish with a light raking to mix the seed into the soil. Finally, keep the soil damp each day, but not soaked, until the seed germinates and becomes established. Let the ryegrass grow without any mowing, continuing until you till it under about 2 weeks prior to the time you begin planting your garden next spring.