What's your favorite cover crop?

[NwMtGardener]

I'm not that "up" on cover crops, but i think the info you're seeing about cover crops which are planted in the spring would pertain to large scale agriculture/farmers who arent going to plant something in that field till later in the year, or maybe not at all that year. The majority of us gardeners would do a cover crop in the fall, to keep the empty soil covered until we're ready to use it for those veggies in the spring.

 

[digitS']

But, I am really trying to get "up" on cover crops because I obviously cannot gather material & make enuf compost!

I may also be confusing the issue by shying away from the term "manure." Altho' "manure" comes from the same word family as "manual" and has to do with "working" the ground, I still think of it as the stuff I scraped off my boots after leaving the corral . . .

If I harvest and pull a late planting of, say, snap peas, and do not have time to follow them with bush beans, I can sow winter rye. I could wait a few weeks and sow Asian greens or something in that ground so - I am planting the cover crop at the same time as I am, or could, sow another vegetable.

The same would be true with sowing oats in the spring. I have some use for the oats for dry flower bouquets or wreathes but not a lot . . . It grows easily, produces a lot . . . Why not grow that extra and pull and use it for a summer mulch? It also supresses some of the unwanted plants (weeds) which might otherwise grow in that veggie garden - a "living mulch." That was my thinking.

Steve

 

[AMKuska]

oooooh, I get it! Thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

[baymule]

Winter cover crop: Weeds
Summer cover crop: More Weeds

 

[NwMtGardener]

Shhhhhhhh Bay - That's my secret about the dutch white clover i mentioned in the other post where we were talking about cover crops - its just a weed that i made an excuse for.