PlantSowGrow
How to grow Red Clover (Green Manure)
Trifolium pratense
🥕 Vegetable
🌱 Grown each year
A deep-rooting clover that fixes nitrogen from the air and feeds the soil for the next crop. Bumblebees love the flowers if you let a few bloom.
At a glance: Sow mid April to mid August, harvest from mid July.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Red Clover (Green Manure): what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 4+ hours a day
- Watering
- No watering needed once established
- Soil
- Any soil
- Spacing
- Broadcast thinly
- In pots
- Best in the ground
- Feeding
- No feeding needed
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
- Difficulty
- Easy
Step by step
- Mid April – mid August · around the last spring frost
Sow on Bare Ground
Rake the soil, scatter the seed evenly, rake it in lightly and water if dry. Great for beds that would otherwise sit empty.
- 7–21 days after “Sow on Bare Ground” · Late April – early May
Check It Has Come Up
A green carpet should be showing. It smothers weeds and protects the soil from rain.
- 90–180 days after “Sow on Bare Ground” · Mid July – mid October
Cut Down and Dig In
Before it flowers or sets seed (or when you need the bed), chop it down, let it wilt for a few days, then dig it into the top 20 cm.
- 14–28 days after “Cut Down and Dig In” · Late July – mid August
Wait, Then Plant
Leave the bed for 2–4 weeks while it rots down before sowing or planting the next crop.
