Any kind of legumes will make for an ideal green manure

Planting a green crop and digging it back into the soil can be done before autumn, says Fiann Ó Nualláin

AS YOU have been steadily harvesting your potatoes and other crops over the past few weeks, space they once occupied is often left fallow. You may want to rest it a little before the next successional sowing, or even have it sit out a season until it fits back into your crop rotation plans. Well, it doesn’t have to be idle and you can choose to sow in a green manure — then you can be one step ahead of the soil fertility game.

My advice as always is — don’t wait until late autumn to dig in manure, grow a green manure now. When you think that potatoes are heavy feeders and will deplete your soil rapidly — why not sow in a green manure straight after?