I am experimenting with the use of (anuual) clovers as a mulch in which to
grow my vegetables. The system (developed by CSIRO) has enough in common
with Permaculture that the experience of seasoned permaculturalists would help -
esecially as CSIRO has discontinued working on the project and the records
are lost (or, at least, the current staff do not know where they are).

Briefly, I have successfully established a bed of winter clover which is now
dying down (in the Australian Spring). However, it has been a cold Spring
and I will be lucky if the clover has died sufficiently before the bed is
badly needed for the seedlings of the summer vegetables.

So the question is:

Do I plant the seedings _on top_ of the bed of dying clover or do I dig holes
in which to plant the seedlings and let the clover form the mulch round the
seedlings?

All suggestions will be gratefully received.

Felix Karpfen

--

Felix Karpfen
Public Key 72FDF9DF (DH/DSA)

In article ,
Felix Karpfen wrote:

I am experimenting with the use of (anuual) clovers as a mulch in which to
grow my vegetables. The system (developed by CSIRO) has enough in common
with Permaculture that the experience of seasoned permaculturalists would
help -
esecially as CSIRO has discontinued working on the project and the records
are lost (or, at least, the current staff do not know where they are).

Sounds like you may be talking to the wrong people. Google "clever clover"
and CSIRO for further info -- I thought CC was already commercially available.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Life is like a cigarette -- smoke it to the butt." -- Harvie Krumpet

:
* len gardener

got your e/mail felix,

I replied direct rather than to the newsgroup because I thought that my
question verged on OT for this newsgroup. Given that it has little traffic
at present, this topic may arouse some interest.


my experience with mulch is it rots away and in the warmer days with
some rain the quicker this happens. i did manage to leave out the
follow up word "seedlings" that you talked about, but typo's happen
hey? i would expect clover mulch to break down rather rapidly once
decomposition begins, i use slashed pasture grass as mulch and
generally lay it to around 2 foot deep in no time it can be down to 8
or 10"s

The "Clever Clover" project is geared to the less fortunate who do not have
access to pastures.

However - just in case there are other subscribers to the NG who are also
curious - the initial mulch is formed by the clover. This grows in Winter
and dies down in Spring. Top-up mulch is provided by a second bed that
contains lucerne.

, while the break down occurs i make holes or pull material
aside to create narrow clearways for seeds and or seedlings.


Scheduled for a trial run in the next 2-3 weeks.

Thank you.


sorry to hear you had virus infection problems.

I had no problems with the Swem virus/worm. My Service Provider (and
many of his less fortunate clients) did have problems. However for
several weeks I scored 8-15 messages a day (each about 180Kb long)
offering to fix a security hole in my (non-existent) Windows program. I
persuaded my Service Provider to give me a new mailbox, no longer publish
my address and have received neither spam nor viruses since then.

hope your new season plants do well and i guess summer comes to
canberra sooner or later huh chuckle

We get our share of summer here. The problem is that it believes the
calender and starts in the latter part of November. And this year
Spring thought that it was still Winter.

Felix
--

Felix Karpfen
Public Key 72FDF9DF (DH/DSA)