Alternative Cover Crops
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
- Exploring different ideas for cover cropping in the tunnels at Spring Forth Farm!
Spring Forth Farm
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This material is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2020-38640-31521 through the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under project number LS21-348. USDA is an equal opportunity employer and service provider.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the US Department of Agriculture.
Tithonia is the other mid-to-late season annual flower we've used to good effect to quickly fill space. In our locale (central Ohio), it does well in summer heat, requires little water once established, pollinators like it, and finches eat seeds. And, critically for us, the deer don't touch it. I fancy the orange flowered variety myself.
I am intrigued with flower cover crops! Will be interesting experimenting with this in the years to come!!
We use lemon balm as a cover crop and also as just adding diversity in the garden. It naturally helps keep some pests away as well as attracts pollinators. It can be used in a culinary setting and also makes a wonderful tea. It will reseed, which can be a problem, however when young, they are quite easy to pull up or they can be chopped, crimped and then layered over.
Marigolds produce a ton of bio mass when you plant them from seed and let them grow huge. Plus they look nice and are pest resistant and bring in pollinators. I just cut down about 16 marigold plants I seeded in june and they turned into plants the each the size of a keg of beer!
Yes we've also been very pleased with the marigolds
You might consider adding a few tomatillo plants for diversity & yield. They seem to be a classic "under-bred" crop that's still a little wild - large, long-lived, and not at all fussy. I decided that large-batch roasting (and then freezing) was the easiest way to handle the large harvests - kinda like tomato paste, adding some roast tomatillo sauce improves all sorts of dishes.
Did you have issues with caterpillars? Last time we grew tomatillos we lost most of the crop and bc the caterpillars are inside the husk we couldn't tell what was going on.
@@jonathanleiss914 Helicoverpa zea, maybe? We didn't have any issues, but we just had a few plants. In central Ohio community garden, we're over-run with squash bugs and cabbage worms, and very few other tomatillo plants. I wonder if keeping a few widely spaced plants could help build up a resident population of beneficial predators.
I've got ice plant in all my perinial herb beds and love it there. It healthy, bug and disease free, thick as carpet, and smothers most weeds. It does come back each year. Sometimes because it didn't winter kill (Z7b) and sometimes by seed. I'm tempted to use it in garden places where I transplant, like tomatoes peppers,...or where I trellis. You probably couldn't direct sow into it.
sweet potatoes are underrated as a cover crop. fodder beats can work in the same way and they poke out and you can pull them. tillish radish/daikon radish. You can also sell kimchi
I like Daikon Radish as a cover for its' market value. I plan to cover crop a large area with sweet potato next year! I'm tired of Farming in Florida Summers. lol
Not sure I would call it a cover crop, but to serve the pollinators, cover ground, and very easy to grow/propagate in SC, Zone 8a, African blue Basil lasts all season, serves The pollinators more than any plant I have ever come across, mine grows to 4x4x4feet from a leaf cutting put directly in good soil. AND leaves are still excellent to eat even in full bloom. Stem does become large and woody, however
SARE discusses the legumes Partridge Pea and Bundleflower as cover crops that are allowed to stray and go to seed outside the planted area for biodiversity and to attract pollinators. They're native to the midwest. Seed is inexpensive.
My recommendation is cow peas or bush green beans. Both have beneficial factors either in getting back nitrogen and food and/or nematode fighting capabilities.
Amazing job! Most of my gardening failed because I was pregnant (hard to bend over) so what you are talking about doing things around the children is very important. My crops are pretty much what you have but I have no high tunnels or drip but I do have a sprinkler system that came with the house. I had a horrible time with drip tape because i could not bend over and I cant get it to not kink. Although I like the plastic cover to suppress weeds its not something I want to do at this time so I gotta deal with grass another way. On top of that, I had problems with caterpillars eating my cukes, melons and my tomato plants so I'm kinda bummed out but seeing what you are doing helps me have hope. Thank you and keep doing it!
Best of luck next year. You'll be able to bend over but of course there will be a whole new set of challenges - and joys.
Hi ! I'm wondering if you know about the following, which in my experience are a way better alternative to plastic or fabric ground covers. Due to either breakdown of the material ( cheap stuff), cost of the expensive stuff, or the lack of water permiability of black plastic. Which ( B.P.) can work well enough to use at 1st to kill lawn while growing squash or something. But, I think u may like to watch Charles Dowding's channel, or a few others like James Prigioni & Richard Perkins. Between the 3, you have all sizes and styles of gardens, but all 3 have shown how to start & maintain simple no-till systems, esp. if u can use contractors paper on the sod right off. Or cardboard. Others have said do it the opposite, soil/compost right on the low-cut grass, then put paper then mulch on the paper, and this way the roots don't have any impediment to getting down below the compost layer. For myself, it's worked fine to do the paper on the bottom. Heavy-duty board I would reserve for pathways or where I'm really cutting a hole through it for a large transplant like a tomato. Either way u have to have something on top of the paper or it tears easily in the rain, wind and touching/walking on. I don't have bunch if compost going yet ( moved, stuff) but this can be it's own mulch, otherwise hay and grass clippings work great in rows. Charles has the most how-to content on it probably.
You guys are cranking out great info! Thanks!
thanks for putting out great content!!! you and Josh kick ass.
Great idea! Thank you for sharing!
Great as always
I plant melons, seedsare cheap and cover is good,
Interesting, thanks for sharing!
Pumpkin covers my open spots
Immediately downloaded usda cover crop chart thanks man
What I have found, this year to have been a very successful cover crop has been Tobacco.
A larger variety, Nicotiana Sylvestris, has broad leaves that cover the ground and suppress weeds as well as deter slugs and snails. They also attract greenfly away from thing greenfly would otherwise eat and at a more elemental level...adding greenfly to your compost might have some effect(maybe).
The green fly dont seem to affect the plant in anyway, the green fly just seem to live there and never leave. This make them a great thing to plant near roses, Greenfly are attracted more to the tobacco flowers than the roses. (but keep potatoes and tomatoes away from tobacco flowers because the opposite seems to happen with white fly)
Leaving the roots in the soil will feed the soil.
Can you please release your book as an e-book (and I would also gladly buy "Farmer No-Till notes" or somthing like that:) Thank you!
With sunflowers, how do you manage white grubs?
I know Rick Grimes good at gardening
Okra would do well in this system.
A weed wacker with steel blade would chop them down quick
But be careful, since a circular saw blade on a stick that you swing around is, you know, somewhat dangerous.
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Would you add information on your very neat High tunnel? I love the view of it that I saw, and would like to know more.
The caterpillar tunnels are 16' gothic pro tunnels from Farmers Friend. Our big tunnel is from Morgan County Seed.
Could you please share the name of the white marigold?
Can you tell me the time stamp and I'll tell you what it is?
I have white marigolds, the variety is eskimo.
@@denisekelley2292 Thanks!
I believe they also showed a white zinnia.