![]() ![]() On the other hand, some cover crops can have negative effects on the food crop you plan to plant. For example, if you plan to grow a high-feeder (a crop that pulls a lot of nutrients from the soil), like tomatoes, it’s a great idea to precede the tomato crop with a leguminous cover crop like field peas or clover, which will add nitrogen to your soil. Knowing what you want to grow after the cover crop is done will help you select the best cover crop species. Some cover crops are best for summer, like cowpeas, soybeans, and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids, whereas there are other specific cover crop options for wintertime, such as winter wheat, clovers, and Austrian peas. Do you instead want to kill the cover crop and have its residue provide mulch on the soil for as long as possible? If that’s the case, sturdier, carbon-rich crops like oats or sorghum are great options. Do you want to kill the cover crop and plant seeds as soon as possible? If so, consider a tender cover like buckwheat. This is important based on what you plan to do with that bed after cover cropping. Residue that is tender, like buckwheat or peas, will be assimilated by the soil critters much faster than sorghum stalks or barley stems. How long will it take the cover crop residue to decompose? Austrian winter peas, on the other hand, can be mowed anytime and will die. For example, winter annual rye will only die-by-mowing after it creates a seed head, but before it releases its seeds. ![]() However, make sure you’re working with a cover crop that will die from mowing, otherwise you’ll end up with a regenerating cover, which may not be what you’re after. There are a variety of methods for killing a cover, but the most popular for home gardeners is mowing, weed eating, or just chopping down with some loppers. When the time comes that you can let it go no further, you kill it, allowing it to provide a layer of mulch on the soil, which feeds the soil food web below as it decomposes. The trick to getting the maximum benefit of cover crops is to allow the crop to get as mature as possible without making seeds. Examples include buckwheat and field peas.įigure out how long it will take your cover crop to mature from the time you seed it to the time you kill it. When cover cropping for shorter periods of time, consider green manure crops, or tender, quick-growing crops that will outcompete weeds and, when finished, will provide some easily-digested, supple foodstuff for the soil microorganisms. When cover cropping for long periods of time, combine a small grain (think cereal ingredients like oats, barley, rye) and a legume (nitrogen-fixing plant like peas or vetch) for best results. In short, they go in wherever you have time and space. Cover crops can be seeded in just one bed, or they can be grown in entire sections of your garden. The alternative is bare soil, and we know what that means: weeds and lost of nutrients and topsoil via erosion and volatilization. Think about how every inch of soil that is covered with plants means an inch of active conversion of solar energy into energy that is usable by YOU, via your garden crops that benefit from healthier soil. While you’re thinking about those plentiful reasons to consider cover cropping, also think about maximizing solar energy in your garden. Cover crops can also act as mulches if managed correctly, improve soil physical properties in just one growing season, and attract beneficial insects and pollinators to your garden. Cover crops add organic matter to the soil, and add nitrogen in a slow-release way that plants can handle, leading to less nitrogen volatilization (read: waste!). The practice of growing specific crops just for fertilizing and building the soil dates back to the Roman Empire. ![]() A cover crop is a crop you grow for the soil, instead of for your plate. ![]()
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