Best Garden Cover Crop

How to use cover crops in your home garden.

Best garden cover crop.

In the spring use proper crop rotation guide strategies in your garden and then turn the cover crops into the soil. The best winter cover crops differ from region to region by growing zone and the crop s winter hardiness but from a management perspective there are basically two types winter killed and winter hardy along with a third blended type of the two. Killed by cold but have sufficient biomass to protect the soil. There are two main groups of cover crops for gardens legumes and non legumes and each group has plants which grow better in certain climates.

Best cover crops for pathogen protection. Choosing the best cover crop to accomplish the job in your climate is where most people run into difficulty. Rye winter rye or cereal rye is a great cover crop to plant in the fall or early winter. To have the absolute best garden soil for your next spring here s how you should prepare your garden in the fall.

Plant grass crops such as winter wheat grain rye or oats to scavenge leftover nutrients from the veggie garden and then recycle them by plowing it in the spring depending upon your soil needs you may even plant a combination of green manure and grass as a cover crop. The when of planting cover crops. When it comes to cover crops for gardens the list of benefits is extensive. Spread your compost learn how to make your own compost here in the garden beds and plant cover crops in them.

Cowpeas center bed will add nitrogen to this garden s soil and dutch white clover right bed will make a great living mulch for interplanted food crops. Depending on your preferences and your garden s specific needs you can seed annual rye grass among your vegetables or wait until you ve harvested your veggies and plant rye grass as. If your soil is in need of nitrogen use austrian peas or the like as a cover crop. There are a lot of different strategies to use.

Cover crops at work. In fact as you will see below in the video we plant our raised garden rows in a cover crop as soon as a crop finishes. Now that you have an idea of what cover crops can do for your garden you have to choose the right cover crops for your needs. Lauren arcuri is a freelance writer and an experienced small farmer based in rural vermont.

1 winter killed cover crops. Grasses are quick to germinate and generally more effective at controlling weeds than legume cover crops which are some of the reasons that annual rye grass is such a popular cover crop. When in the midst of garden planning it is more than acceptable to try out different types of cover crops to see which works best in each situation.