My community garden plot is producing & producing!! I am awash in vegetables, much to my delight. However I am aware that fall is around the corner in New England. I would like to try a cover crop or crops to plant as various vegetable beds become vacant. Any one have experience with this? I have been looking at seeds & am a bit worried that I could be sowing next years weeding problem. Thoughts? Suggestions?
I believe Sjoerd uses Borage as a cover crop, but Growingpains uses Red Clover. Red Clover will fix nitrogen into the soil (being in the bean family) so next years crop will benefit from that and bees love it. Annual Rye grass is apparently a good soil builder cover crop too. I remember when I was pretty young that my Dad would spread Rye seeds on our lawn in early fall as a ground cover when the grass went dormant.
Skip the annual rye grass. It is a terribly difficult plant to get out of the garden. it clumps up and makes "new" bunches of rye after it is tilled and then it rains. There is a mix for cover crops, but there are different "needs/uses" for them. Some are ground breaker cover crops for clay soil, others are for adding nitrogen. Some for beneficials are available too. There is annual soil buster: that has winter peas, cow peas, oats, crimson clover,radish, sunn hemp and phacelia for a mix from Berlin Seed. winter rye,white clover,red clover, oats, and buckwheat all sold as cover crops individually to mix your own.. a green manure mix is also available. Mustard is also a good cover crop to use a bio-fumigant, but you need to mow it or chop it down just before it goes to bloom till it in and wait two weeks to plant anything. otherwise it becomes a noxious weed. Personally... anything is better than nothing.
Carolyn, Yes! That is what I have been thinking: anything is better than nothing. I saw Sjoerd uses phacelia in one part of his garden. I am considering that. Have you ever used that?
I use Phacelia and Borage as cover crops and am very pleased with them. Let me know what you will use, and by all means post some foto's on here to show them and your plots. i am excited for you.
