Mow 2 Till

[seedcorn]

I just cut mine down and covered the bed with brown grocery bags. No glysophate, no weeds, no digging or tilling in.

I'm sure that works. How many bags would I have to have to cover a 40' X 80' garden? For farmer, how many per acre? Then multiply that by 2,000 acres..... Buy stock in brown, paper bags.

 

[HEChicken]

I'm sure that works. How many bags would I have to have to cover a 40' X 80' garden? For farmer, how many per acre? Then multiply that by 2,000 acres..... Buy stock in brown, paper bags.

That's the problem. Something like that works on a small area but the bigger you go, the more you have to look at other options. Around here it is windy more than it is not, so covering garden beds with paper doesn't work unless they are really well staked down. I've used paper feed sacks in the past since they are much thicker than a brown paper bag and larger as well. But I have to choose a non-windy day (rare) just to lay them out and then as well as I try to make sure every corner has a brick to hold it down (which takes a lot of bricks and hauling them is a job by itself), there is always a corner that the wind is able to get out from under a brick and before I know it the bags are blowing all over the yard.

Now that my garden area is so much bigger (16x40) covering with bags of any kind is pretty much out of the question.

I had been looking at doing Dutch White Clover as a cover crop but on another thread was told that wasn't such a good idea. Clover is what was recommended elsewhere. I had been concerned about it developing its own root system that would make it difficult to later eradicate but was reassured that as long as it is tilled in before it seeds, it works great at adding nitrogen without in itself becoming a "pest". Has anyone here done this? What was your experience?

DigitS', I've also looked at field peas as an option but wasn't sure where to purchase them. Do you buy them online and if so, do you have a source you recommend?

 

[digitS']

I have bought them online.

The Alaska variety is a type. It is not a "field pea" any more than the varieties grown for split pea soup are "field peas" but a perfectly good choice for more than one purpose. The seed is less expensive in bulk.

If I order that radish & others, they will be from Fedcoseeds.com

Steve

I have come back to edit this because the Austrian "field pea" popped up . . . I don't know that anyone grows this Pisum sativum as a vegetable altho' it is of the same family as our garden peas. I have always found this traditional cover crop in the at the garden center.

 

[NwMtGardener]

I can answer the Dutch White Clover question...i had it self seed in my garden 2 seasons ago. And I thought "cool, its in the walkway, its good for the soil, i can tromp over it a billion times and it will keep growing..." and it did do all those things...especially the "keep growing" part. It formed a dense mat that just kept spreading. And when it started encroaching, i dug out chunks, but it was a challenge! And i took away quite a lot of soil with it...probably the good quality soil that it enriched!

Its still in my garden, i havent eradicated it totally, because i have noticed the bees are really attracted to it and i have had problems with lack of pollination in the past. And it really has a long bloom time, so thats nice to for the bees too. But i have the sneaking feeling that at some point I may regret letting it grow in there...

So i guess the upshot is that it has plusses and minuses. Forms a dense mat, discouraging other weeds from growing, and it continued to grow throughout my winter season. Difficult to eradicate, i think you would have to spray or really really till it in. Attracts pollinators. Of course, now that i think about that last one...if you're planting it as a winter cover crop, and not going to be having it in the summer when you want other polinators around...that's not an advantage for you.

 

[HEChicken]

Wow - thank you for relaying your experience of the DWC. I actually had it in my shopping cart (online) but hadn't checked out yet, and I don't think I will. So glad I came on here to do more research.

 

[thistlebloom]

I have Dutch white clover in my lawn, and am encouraging it. Whatever that means, I don't think it pays much attention to me one way or another.

But it's a great bee food, greens up before lawn grasses and stays green longer in the fall, fixes nitrogen, and is drought tolerant. Lets just say I don't have a lawn that the Scotts company would use as a poster child. My lawn is also loaded with dandelions, so in the spring it's a sea of yellow. But it's green
(when it's not blooming) and that's good enough for me.
But, I don't think I'd want to deliberately sow it (DWC) in my garden. I have enough perennial weeds in the beds to deal with. (See dandelions, above ).

Did you know that clover used to be included in lawn seed mixes? That was before everybody had to have a lawn that looked like a putting green.

 

[seedcorn]

I fight clover and dandelions in my yard. Me and my trusty hand sprayer and chemicals. My yard is FAR from putting green but left alone dandelions and clover will choke out all my grasses.

Wish I could pack it and send it to those of you that want it.

 

[thistlebloom]

I fight clover and dandelions in my yard. Me and my trusty hand sprayer and chemicals. My yard is FAR from putting green but left alone dandelions and clover will choke out all my grasses.

Wish I could pack it and send it to those of you that want it.

Nothing wrong with a perfect lawn. I just have to choose my battles and the lawn was an easy one for me to reconcile myself to a live and let live mentality.
There are still some weeds that aren't welcome, I get a persistent thistle that comes up here and there that I eradicate, and Hawkweed that is getting to be a bigger patch than I'm comfortable with, so it's going to be in the crosshairs this summer.

 

[HEChicken]

I have Dutch white clover in my lawn, and am encouraging it. Whatever that means, I don't think it pays much attention to me one way or another.

But it's a great bee food, greens up before lawn grasses and stays green longer in the fall, fixes nitrogen, and is drought tolerant. Lets just say I don't have a lawn that the Scotts company would use as a poster child. My lawn is also loaded with dandelions, so in the spring it's a sea of yellow. But it's green
(when it's not blooming) and that's good enough for me.
But, I don't think I'd want to deliberately sow it (DWC) in my garden. I have enough perennial weeds in the beds to deal with. (See dandelions, above ).

Did you know that clover used to be included in lawn seed mixes? That was before everybody had to have a lawn that looked like a putting green.

Yeah, I think that's where I'm at - leave it in the lawn but don't plant it in the veggie garden. FWIW, where I grew up, if it was green, it was a lawn - it wasn't until I moved to the US that I learned that a "lawn" is supposed to be only grass. I can't give up my roots though, and still, if I look out and it looks green, to me it is a healthy lawn. I'll never forget the lawn guy who stopped by my house one time, offering his services. I told him "no thank you, I have a working lawnmower". He said "but I can spray all kinds of toxic chemicals on it to get rid of the weeds for you" (I may be paraphrasing slightly). I told him "Heck no - if its green and growing, its part of the lawn - I'm not going to kill it off". He went off in a huff.

Then, when we were buying our current property, it was spring and I was out here to do an inspection when the seller's wife came out. I told her "OMG, I'm so excited to see all these dandelions!" She looked at me to see if I was being facetious - I'm sure she'd never heard anyone say that before. But as I looked at a sea of dandelions, all I could think was how healthy my flock would be when I turned them out on it

I use no chemicals here, and that way the free-ranging chickens and turkeys can eat their fill of the beneficial greens. Last year, everyone who came to visit my flock was astounded at how healthy they are - and its all in their ability to forage for their own greens and bugs - I'm not doing anything special to keep them healthy.

 

[baymule]

I don't use a cover crop. I can plant all year around, so I do. I gather bags and bags of leaves in the fall and carpet the chicken coop/run 3' deep. I let the chickens reduce it to 6-8" of compost, dig it out and start over. I guess I mulch as my cover crop. Been doing it for 9 years, so have a lovely soil, don't turn the soil over any more, lots of earthworm activity and beneficial insects showed up to battle the bad bugs.

And I like dandelions too! I gathered the blooms last year, made jelly, syrup and dried the petals for tea. Yummy!