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Nitrogen fixer planting list 2016

 
Posts: 184
Location: Zone 4 MN USA
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I'm working on filling my property with useful plants and especially nitrogen fixers and biomass mulch plants.
Some of these I have experience with, others I'm reading up on.
If anyone has some interesting or useful thoughts or experience to share on any of these I would much appreciate it.

I have several places I'll be planting these.
For now I plan on filling my food forest with most of them just to try them out.
The garden/under fruit trees/paths will get some but not all.
Here are my thoughts, please share if I'm off on these uses in any way.

Trees/Shrubs:
Black Locust- Interplant around property, food forest, hedges, source of future wood fuel

Siberian Pea shrub- Woody chop and drop candidate, interplant around property, in food forest, near chicken coop, hedge candidate

False Indigo- Mulching, interplant with seedling trees, strategic spots in garden

New Jersey Tea Plant-No experience here, supposed tea substitute, but I was surprised that it's a nitrogen fixer too.

Fragrant False Indigo- Lower growing, plan for possibly using under fruit trees, as barrier mulch plants for annual beads to fight off grasses/weeds

Illinois Bundle Flower- Very excited for this one, appears to be a useful plant with mulching potential, possible forage crop for the chickens

Wild Senna-Same here

Showy Tick Trefoil-Trying it out, I know about the sticky burrs, to be honest this one may be used as a pioneer species when I clear out a bunch of buckthorn form certain areas of the property.

Annual Shrubs/Vines
Partridge Pea- No thoughts other than it's an annual I could plant under taller things and help feed them with.

Trailing Wild Bean- Vine that I'm hoping is more vigorous than the garden varieties. We'll see.

Perennial groundcover/lowgrowing
Prairie Turnip- Amazing potential from reading up on it. A perennial tuber that also fixes nitrogen and competes with grasses. Could be planted on the edges of my garden , anyone grow/eat/heard of it?

Birdsfoot trefoil- Vigorous grower supposedly, I'd like to try it on paths to mow and for out competing grasses and weeds in other areas.

Crown Vetch-Have this already, plan to "plug" it in areas I'd like to see devoid of weeds/buckthorn/grass, or to establish for erosion control

White clover- Last year I used this in the path areas of my garden and it did well. Took long to establish though and did die off quickly in the fall, it's easy enough to trim with a mower on it's highest wheel setting or with a cheapo electric string trimmer. Nice on the feet when it's not too wet.

Annual groundcovers

Red Clover- no experience, supposedly will winterkill right? I'm hoping so and will use it to re-invigorate/recapture my annual beds in weedy spots

Fenugreek- Herb, I think low growing, I'll experiment in annual beds.

Winter Peas-I used these last year with some success along with turnips. Not as vigorous weed suppression as I liked, but the soil looked good this fall.

Debating whether to plant
Two-Grooved Milk Vetch- Selenium accumulator that supposedly stinks and is poisonous. I thought it might be worth planting to deter deer from grazing in certain spots, but after reading up on it I may not bother. Seems like a native plant that has it's place, but maybe not in my edible forest forest or garden.

Cheers!
 
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Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8
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I have planted Prairie Turnip seeds a few times and so far no luck.

 
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Unless you planted mammoth red clover, which is an annual, your medium red clover will be a high yielding large plant with biennial tendencies, but is a perennial pasture producer over all.

Dixie crimson is a easily winter killed clover in your neck of the woods. Although, if you allow it to flower and set seed, you will see some re-germination annually.

Crimson clover and medium red clover are drastically different.

If you want a huge amount of nitrogen and a tremendous mulch or forage producing crop for summer and fall, the mammoth red is very impressive. You can get tons an acre from the single cut and immediately plant a nitrogen hungry crop no-till into the stubble.
 
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