Digging in the Dirt > Gardening Information
The recipe for abundant harvests of nutritious and beautiful flowers, herbs and vegetables begins with high quality, organically-grown seeds and an adequate supply of water, sunlight and nutrients. Of course, a good dose of enthusiasm and hard work is necessary as well, but the real key to success rests with garden soil that is alive.
It All Begins with The Soil
Living, breathing soil, containing organisms ranging from microscopic bacteria to eight-inch long night crawlers is essential for sustaining healthy, vigorous plants. While there are many good organic fertilizers and foliar sprays such as our EarthJuice and Maxicrop that act primarily on the plants themselves, if we act on the time-honored adage "feed the soil," we will discover that applying compost and growing cover crops are sustainable, effective, and inexpensive ways of building fertile soil and growing healthy crops.
Gardeners who improve soil in this manner work in harmony with nature's complex cycles where the remains of decaying plants and animals are broken down and reabsorbed by living plants and animals. This circle of birth, death, and rebirth is the basis for all life on our planet.
Renewing and Protecting the Garden with Cover Crops
Cover crops are plants that are grown specifically for soil improvement, contributing greatly to the overall health and beauty of the garden. Relatively easy to grow, cover crops accumulate nutrients in their tissues, die, decompose, and become nourishment for future plants. They can be harvested and turned directly into the soil, or added to a compost pile and later applied as finished compost. All that is required of us as gardeners and farmers is to prepare the soil to receive the seed of these humble plants. Nature does the rest.
In addition to providing essential organic matter and nutrients, cover crops also provide protection from the detrimental effects of soil erosion and surface crusting. After fall harvest, bare gardens exposed to the damaging effects of wind and water often find their soil rapidly reduced to mere "dirt."
Many crops such as winter rye, hairy vetch, and Austrian winter pea can be planted in late summer or early fall to create a protective mat of growth before winter dormancy. Early the following spring, when soil temperatures in many places are barely above freezing and the ground is a mix of thawing snow, ice and mud, these hardy cover crops resume active growth. It is during this spring period that cover crops established the previous year are particularly beneficial.
They not only continue to prevent soil erosion, but produce prodigious amounts of nutrient rich organic matter at a time when most garden space is unused. This fresh organic matter, when turned into the soil, sustains an active and richly diverse community of soil-dwelling organisms including bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, centipedes, springtails, mites, millipedes, spiders, beetles and earthworms...each of which perform very specific functions vital to higher plants, including:
- Producing vitamins and other growth-enhancing compounds
- Transforming nitrogen from the air to a plant-available form on the roots of legume plants
- Increasing plant uptake of soil phosphorus
- Controlling outbreaks of soil pathogens
- Releasing carbon dioxide which is then absorbed by plants to form new plant tissue
- Creating more soil aeration and distributing nutrients throughout the soil by means of tunneling and burrowing
Cover crops are also a very effective way of suppressing weeds. For example, spring growth from an over-wintered hairy vetch crop can prevent early season weeds such as mustard or quackgrass from getting established. During the summer, buckwheat can grow two feet tall in just a few weeks, leaving the ground underneath nearly weed-free and in excellent condition for planting the next vegetable or flower crop.
Cover crops also provide a ground cover throughout the year that prevents the loss of nutrients downward beyond the rooting zone. Nutrients captured by the cover crop can be used by the next crop. Cover crop roots also increase soil aeration and water-holding capacity--two of the most important physical properties of a healthy soil environment.
Choosing the Right Cover Crop
There are hundreds of cover crop species. The selections we offer are among the most reliable and effective. All are widely adaptable and will enhance any garden ecology.
A cover crop works best when it improves the soil and doesn't interfere with the garden's primary plants—flowers, herbs and vegetables. Perennial cover crops, which can occupy a piece of land for up to several years, are one of the most effective means of restoring soil health. However, many of us cannot afford to take land out of primary crop production for a long period of time. Instead, we can grow shorter term, annual cover crops that attain full growth within weeks or months.
Annual cover crops can be planted during three distinct time niches throughout the year: Early spring, summer, and late summer/mid-fall. Early spring plantings of fava beans, field peas and oats, for example, attain maximum growth by early to mid-summer. These crops can then be cut and turned into the soil, left on the surface as a mulch in preparation for a fall crop (such as broccoli or lettuce), or made into compost.
Cover crops that are planted during the summer, such as buckwheat, cowpea or sorghum, fill the second time niche. These crops have a role to play in-between spring crops such as radishes, and fall crops such as lettuce.
The third time niche starts with a late summer to mid-fall planting of hairy vetch, winter pea, or rye, for example. These crops establish in the fall, go dormant during the winter, resume vigorous growth in the spring. They are then plowed under or cut for a surface mulch in late spring/early summer to make way for flowers, herbs and vegetables.
Successfully Integrating Cover Crops Into the Garden
Through reading, experimentation, and observation, the creative gardener will learn many possible ways to work with cover crops. Some, such as rye, hairy vetch and clovers can be sown directly into a live, standing crop (e.g. corn, lettuce, cabbage) so that they become fully established ground covers by the time the first crop is harvested.
Others that germinate and grow quickly, such as oats and buckwheat, may be used as nurse crops to shelter a succeeding crop planted directly into the cover crops. For example, buckwheat may be planted between hills of squash. Four to six weeks later, it can be cut and used as a mulch around the young plants.
Overlapping life cycles of different plants allows for efficient use of space and time. Sometimes it works best to plant two or more cover crops together rather than a single species. For example, a mixture of rye and/or oats with hairy vetch will produce more organic matter than growing vetch alone. The rye or oats also act like a trellis for the vetch so that it will grow vertically and make cutting it easier.
Once a cover crop has attained most or all of its growth, it can be managed in a variety of ways. Hairy vetch, for example, can be cut and plowed or forked under before it has reached full maturity to facilitate an early season planting of corn. For maximum organic matter and nitrogen contribution, however, you must wait for the vetch to begin blooming and cut it with a sharp knife, scythe, or sickle at the soil surface. The roots will release nitrogen below ground and the rest can be left as a nitrogen-rich mulch into which transplants can be set. Cover crops can also be harvested and added to the compost pile where their nutrient-rich organic matter will transform into valuable compost.
See our cover crop page for detailed descriptions of these valuable plants that will enhance your garden's beauty, while helping you build living, vibrant soil.
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