Many people don’t want to think about extra work at the end of the season, but now is the time to plant cover crops to improve your soil for the next vegetable season.
Cover crops – a valuable plant factory
If you’re not familiar with cover crops, here’s the key information: These valuable plants can add organic matter and aerate the soil, protect it from compaction caused by rain, suppress weeds and reduce erosion. As a bonus, if you let them bloom, their flowers provide nectar and pollen for pollinators and other beneficial insects.
Plant this cover crop and you’ll never have to till the soil
To begin with, prepare the soil and pour a lot of seeds, lightly sprinkle them and water them as needed until the autumn rains begin.
Cover crops include cereals such as winter oats, rye and a wide variety of broadleaf plants. Legumes, such as the most commonly used clover, but also many others, are “fixers” of nitrogen. Beneficial bacteria in legume root nodules take nitrogen from the air and provide it to plants.
When the cover crop breaks down in the spring, some of that nitrogen becomes available to fertilize vegetables the following year. If you are concerned about cost, know that cover crop nitrogen from legumes is much cheaper than organic nitrogen fertilizer and competes with the prices of conventional fertilizers.
Timely sowing
Timing is key for cover crops. Plant overwintered cover crop seeds by September or early October before the weather becomes too cold and wet for them to germinate and establish.
Make sure when planting the seed that it has good contact with the soil. Larger seeds such as peas, vetches and cereals should be sown lightly. Mix the small seeds with sand to make them easier to disperse, then use a sprinkler to water. If the weather is still dry, irrigate the area.
Cover crops for different seasons
Be prepared to intervene on your cover crop in the spring and kill it before it sets seed. Do this three to four weeks before planting the vegetables to allow the crop to break down properly. Otherwise, it can cause some diseases and attract some unwanted insects.
If you don’t have three to four weeks for the cover crop to break down, you can remove the stems and leaves and apply them elsewhere as mulch or compost, or double dig the cover crop deeper into the ground. When to kill the crop – depends on when you need to plant vegetables.
If the plant is too tall to turn easily, mow or use a weed trimmer first. Plants with strong stems can be cut and left to decompose above ground. Or you can put the tops in the compost pile and dig up the roots.
Regardless of the method, let the inverted material sit until it’s time to plant.
Source: Oregon live
Source: www.agromedia.rs
