Cover crops with garden

[claytonpiano]

So, I was listening to the speakers at the Mother Earth News Fair and looking at their fantastic pictures. Their crops are wonderful, but plant cover crops "in" with the vegetables. For example, the onions are growing with the clover. When the onions come out, the speaker turns his chickens in to eat the clover and til the dirt. Then another crop goes in and the clover grows again. 

How many of you do things like that? I plant a cover crop in the fall, but not in the spring. One speaker plants a cover crop in the spring and fall with his regular crops. I tried to wrap my brain around that, but I keep thinking how badly things crowd out my vegetables already. Then there is the whole permaculture thing. I would love to incorporate some guilds and am working on that, but when I go out to plant, I keep thinking what happens in a few years when this fruit tree shades out the bushes?

How do you garden? Raised beds, rows, permaculture or the cover crop thing??

[wally]

All of my garden is done in raised beds. After fall harvest I cover the beds with chicken litter and call it done till spring, then turned in to the beds in the spring. I have never planted a cover crop but might try to with winter wheat.

[Callie]

I planted clover in my corn. I planted the clover first, then when it was time, hoed a trench through it and planted the corn. It actually did just fine. The clover didn't stop all the weeds from growing, or even very many of them. It was a low-growing clover- white, maybe? I am not sure about planting onions and clover together. I'd like to see it done though. I hate weeding the smaller crops like onions and carrots.

[Deleted]

Dutch white clover is very short, doesn't shade out most crops, adds nitrogen to the soil, keeps down weeds, it is a win-win if you're hand pulling the weeds that do come up. It does prevent using tools of mass weed destruction, as you'll end up taking out the clover too. I just sowed some today, just to give the creeping charlie something to compete against while waiting for spring till-in day. Other times I've sown it right after an early till, to hold ground until it was warm enough for transplants to go in.

[Deleted]

There you guys go ... giving me ideas again. We have a new field that is heavy red clay - we've been broad forking it and tilling in organic matter as we go ... I may cover crop the part we haven't gotten to yet (it's going to take a while!) and then broad fork and till under the cover crop.

[Callie]

Apr 19, 2015 2:09:04 GMT @dlskidmore said:

Dutch white clover is very short, doesn't shade out most crops, adds nitrogen to the soil, keeps down weeds, it is a win-win if you're hand pulling the weeds that do come up................

And it's quite expensive to buy too.

[Callie]

I like buckwheat for the garden as a summer crop. Any place in the garden that doesn't get planted with the main crops, gets buckwheat planted it in. It's so easy to till in. The bees love it too.

[Deleted]

I plant oats and peas as coverdrops, inoculate the peas so the roots set nitrogen and then cut them for feed. Rabbits, goats, chickens and pigeons all like them. They grow fast, cut at milk stage and die. I plant them in 6" wide rows a foot apart, make a small trench, set seed, and push the compost back up.

When I plant garden, I do the same but in between those rows. I plant close enough to cover the ground to shade out weeds, thin as needed. With compost on top, my soil holds enough water to make most crops, except kitchen garden. Cover crops, interplanted, would compete for moisture during the growing season.

Lots of compost, no bare ground, better soil, nutrients are available as needed, the worms love it, they and roots do all of the work I would have to do, if I turned the soil....James

[Deleted]

I planted a mix of hairy vetch and winter rye last fall. Just mowed it down this past week. The garden will go in a bit later than normal this year because of waiting for the rye to develop; plus the other waiting periods necessary with this plan. But, considering the amount of nitrogen rich biomass I'll be adding to the soil, I feel it's worth the delay. We have a long growing season, and besides, waiting until after the primary hatch of clearwing moths is over to plant my squashes will save me some trouble with vine borers. And, it's more important to me to revitalize my soil and reduce labor in the garden, than it is to have the first tomato, or the earliest corn.  

The vetch was really thick, about 16-18" tall, and the rye was between 2 and 3 feet. They say you should wait until the rye just sets seed heads, then mow it. That way is supposed to interrupt the annual rye's growth cycle (before the seed is ripe) and, consequently, it won't resprout or have viable seeds either. I reckon I'll find out, lol.

They recommend waiting a couple of weeks before tilling it under and then waiting again before planting veggie seeds, due to winter rye's tendency to be allelopathic. I've never done this before so it'll be a learning experience. 

Next, I'm going to plant white clover as a green mulch in the aisles, and rows, (where feasible). I'll rake it in and roll the aisles so they won't be loose dirt. And the plan is to run the mower over it as needed which will spread the cuttings to decompose and create green manure/mulch. The clover will help keep the soil cooler and also provide a refuge for beneficial insects like predatory beetles.

Well, that's the plan anyway. In any case, it ought to look better than all the cardboard I laid in the aisles last year. And hopefully the clover will be sustainable. I've started to let one section of the garden rest each year to help with my rotational plan, and the one from last year produced a really lush carpet of white clover that I planted at the beginning of summer last year. Got my fingers crossed. X=

[claytonpiano]

Apr 26, 2015 1:11:55 GMT @karlintn said:

I planted a mix of hairy vetch and winter rye last fall. Just mowed it down this past week. The garden will go in a bit later than normal this year because of waiting for the rye to develop; plus the other waiting periods necessary with this plan. But, considering the amount of nitrogen rich biomass I'll be adding to the soil, I feel it's worth the delay. We have a long growing season, and besides, waiting until after the primary hatch of clearwing moths is over to plant my squashes will save me some trouble with vine borers. And, it's more important to me to revitalize my soil and reduce labor in the garden, than it is to have the first tomato, or the earliest corn.  

The vetch was really thick, about 16-18" tall, and the rye was between 2 and 3 feet. They say you should wait until the rye just sets seed heads, then mow it. That way is supposed to interrupt the annual rye's growth cycle (before the seed is ripe) and, consequently, it won't resprout or have viable seeds either. I reckon I'll find out, lol.

They recommend waiting a couple of weeks before tilling it under and then waiting again before planting veggie seeds, due to winter rye's tendency to be allelopathic. I've never done this before so it'll be a learning experience. 

Next, I'm going to plant white clover as a green mulch in the aisles, and rows, (where feasible). I'll rake it in and roll the aisles so they won't be loose dirt. And the plan is to run the mower over it as needed which will spread the cuttings to decompose and create green manure/mulch. The clover will help keep the soil cooler and also provide a refuge for beneficial insects like predatory beetles.

Well, that's the plan anyway. In any case, it ought to look better than all the cardboard I laid in the aisles last year. And hopefully the clover will be sustainable. I've started to let one section of the garden rest each year to help with my rotational plan, and the one from last year produced a really lush carpet of white clover that I planted at the beginning of summer last year. Got my fingers crossed. X=

Wow! I'll really be interested in knowing what happens. That was exactly my plan for next year so I will really be watching for how this works out for you!