Green Leaf Manure What You Need To Know

What Is Green Leaf Manure

Green leaf manure is just a more specific version of green manure. In traditional green manure, cover crops are grown on the plot of land you plan on planting.

These crops are generally grown for a short time and then tilled into the soil.

How to Make Green Leaf Manure

Green leaf manure removes the need for you to grow a cover crop. You simply collect fresh green material like leaves and grass and then till these into the soil.

Green leaf manure is an organic fertilizer and soil conditioner made up of still green(contains a high concentration of water still) organic material like leaves, stems, and specific plants grown as a source of green manure.

The type of plant used doesn't matter as long as it is fresh. You can collect green leaf manure from wastelands, fields, and forests, but growing specific crops where you work the green leaf manure into your soil gives the best results.

Green Leaf Manure Examples

• 1) Tree leaves
• 1) Cover Crops
• 1) Stems
• 1) Grass

Green Leaf Manure NPK Content

Ok, so this is where there is no one direct answer. The issue is that it will depend on the types of leaves you collect for your green leaf manure.

In normal green manure, you would grow the type of crops specifically that you are going to use. This will allow you to determine the manure nutrient values range.

But when you go out and collect greens from multiple sources, it is impossible to know the nutrient contents.

The primary benefit of green leaf manure is to help you improve the quality of your soil. While it will add some level of nutrients to the soil, it's really the benefits it can provide to our soil that we would use it.

Soil Benefits of Green Leaf Manure

It adds a small number of nutrients. While not much, adding leaf manure is still a little benefit for our soil's nutrient values.

A more significant benefit is the increase in the aeration of our soil. Higher aeration allows more oxygen to our plant's root system. It provides better conditions for quicker and larger root growth.

The soil drainage is also improved while reducing the chances of the ground getting compacted. The improved drainage also reduces the amount of slurry and fertilizer runoff.

Microbial activity is also improved while providing them more nutrients to feed off of. The more they can feed increases their levels and provides more available nutrients to our plant's roots.

Disadvantages of Green Leaf Manure

Requires a large number of leaves to provide any real benefits to the soil to take place.

Green leaf manure farming is labor intensive.

There is still a lack of research on how beneficial green manure farming is.

Summary

While green leaf manure is a more specific form of green manure, it does not provide as many benefits. However, it is still a great way to quickly improve our soil quality.

It is a lot easier to go and collect a bunch of leaves and add them to our soils than to go through the process of growing a green crop before you plant your primary plants.

Green leaf manure will improve your soil but not to the same levels as traditional green manure methods or composting. If you really want to start improving the quality of your soil, you are better off focusing on those methods instead.