Building Your Soil Over the Winter-Two Cheap Methods with Cover Crops + Leaves
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- How to use cover crops in the suburbs--along with free leaves and a free DIY tool--to take advantage of the downtime in winter, and build your soil ahead of next year, including specific cover crop suggestions. I've shown my usual method plus a "beefed up" method that takes more work, but builds the soil even more quickly. Enjoy!
THANK YOU!!!! Everyone always talks about cover crops but no one EVER actually demonstrates how to fold them in! So helpful. Especially showing both methods. Finally!! :)
You’re welcome! This one was super hard to film (lots of phases and weird camera angles) so I’m not surprised that a lot of others haven’t done it. They’re smarter than me. 😂 Glad it’s useful!
I couldn’t say it any better😉
My thoughts exactly!!
I also like to add a layer of cardboard on top. It seems to encourage the worms to come closer to the surface in the daytime, and of course holds the leaves in place. It is also permeable after soaked and allows enough rain through.
Wherever we’ve used cardboard I get a TON of worms 👍. I don’t have enough for all the beds, yet, but I’m saving it.
Oh that's a great idea! Aldis has all the cardboard you need too. A few logs or branches on top and done, and it breaks down and adds unlike plastic.
@@WellGroundedGardens i know this is old but I love going to Costco to get cardboard, they always have large sheets. I get them throughout the summer and lay them out through the winter. I've always done the leaf thing but never heard about cover-crops before, ill have to give it a shot. Thank you!
We do the same! Plus save Amazon boxes.
Amazing, I am a seasonal gardener and this is one of the clearest advice methods I have seen. Thank you
Great!
I just started doing cover crops for my places I can, namely the potato and garlic beds that only get one crop per season. I buy bags of black eyed peas, one bag is plenty, from the supermarket. I let them grow well and then cut them at the base with a portable hedge trimmer, then pile compost on top and shredded fall leaves later on. It's cool to think about growing your soil too. Compost teas and fermented weeds in water help a lot too for the occasional drench.
I’ll have to try the black-eyed pea approach!
@@WellGroundedGardens The full bag of black eyed peas is only a few bucks and plants way more than you might think, and germination is very high with them as well. Bonus beans too if they can go that long that you can eat or store for next year. Nature is just plain so damn cool!
@cowboyblacksmith I strongly second that!
Best demonstration of cover cropping I've ever seen. Please add a save button to your viewing options.
Thank you-I have no idea how to do that with my videos, but I will try to figure it out. 👍😬
I don’t know if this will help you, but turning my iPad from vertical to horizontal ( portrait to landscape) will allow the … drop down menu to show up. Click on it and the save choice appears.
swipe to the right, guy.
"Persephone period", love it
Wish I’d coined it!
Amazing stuff. The soil microorganism community must absolutely love you.
I haven’t polled them, but the worms are definitely happy (and huge). :)
This was a really fascinating video. Learned a lot about "winterizing" a garden bed for spring in under 10 minutes. Kudos!
Thanks! Glad it was helpful 👍
DUH, ITS FOLLOWING NATURE
I don't think I had seen either of those cover crop termination methods before: 1) crimp in late fall and cover with leaves; 2) "mow" (or weed whack) and remove most of the cover crop in late fall, combine with leaves via lawn mower, mulch with that. More tools for the toolbox. Thanks.
Im glad! As I mentioned towards the end? this probably won’t 100% terminate them the way a black tarp would, but I’m ok with living roots through the winter. I’ll do an update in the spring to see how each method turned out.
Exactly. Living roots all year round is a great thing. And those Daeon Radish were a great example - up in a month and help break up the soil massively too.
Great useful simple practical advice
We've been mowing cover crops since the 1970s. Taught it by older folks, so it's been around a lot longer than that. Sad that this information isn't more widely available.
The easy version ofc is: Let the frost destroy the cover crops.
Idk how bored the nice lady in the video is, but I never got enough time to make my garden look like that.
But worse, when there is activity in the soil over winter, all the nutrients leach away. Ukriane got the best soil in the world especially because it gets frozen in winter and the organic matter just builds up. I am in a similar climate to Michigan, just in maritime Europe and it does not freeze enough to stop all conversion in the ground, so I got to inject fresh organic matter every spring.
So all the covering up in the video above is even worse than doing nothing, actually.
@@duxdawgit’s on TH-cam, available to anyone in the world with even a minimal internet connection…how much wider you thinking?
A helpful hint I found for my very short growing season ( zone 3a) is to always chop my tree leaves with my lawn mower, and maybe even empty the chopped leaves out of the bag and re-chop them. I dig a trench in my beds and bury them under soil, then add on top. They will compost in place extremely well and it gives the beds a good prep for the spring. All extra leaves go into the compost pile that cover all potted plants I didn’t have time to plant into the garden. It gets a good 6 feet of snow cover and the potted plants overwinter well. Your garden looks amazing btw! ❤
Love that! I’ve done trench composting of crop debris and a similar method of chopping them with the mower (and mixing with grass) but never tried burying the chopped leaves. Summary of our prior method, here, in case you’re interested: Trench Composting & End of Season Cleanup
th-cam.com/video/XbUiqljFcw4/w-d-xo.html
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT IDEA FOR YOUR GARDEN.
Here in far north California, zone 7 foothills, I bury oak leaves and vegetable plant remains, even lengthy vines (don't even chop them) in my rows. By March is beautiful soil; no traces of the leaves or vines, etc.
@@elizabethjohnson475 I wish I could do that here. Our ground freezes solid way deep so our compost doesn’t get much time to heat up before the freezes, that’s why chopping things up very small is almost a necessity. Usually in October the soil can be rock hard, and it stays that way until May. My vegi plants don’t go outside until at least June. A short season indeed. Thanks for sharing.
I'm in zone 4 (Pagosa Springs, CO) and like to use the aspen leaves since they seem to break down quicker than the oak leaves.
Great presentation with an excellent narration combined with good visuals. Thank you.
Thanks for the kind words! I’m glad that it came together. :)
Thank you for this video! I’ve never seen cover crops being processed so this was very helpful.
I’m glad! I felt super awkward trying to film it, so I’m glad that it helped somebody. 😂
Nice garden🍀, yes I envisioned using black porous weed mat to top leaves before the snow, or maybe cardboard, makes sense….
Love watching you nourish your soil for the winter. While we don't grow a cover crop on our raised beds, we do add a good 6 inch layer of shredded leaves and grass clippings as well as a good inch layer of chicken and duck manure on top. It's worked great for us. By spring it's pretty much broken down and we just pitch fork the soil before planting.
I’ve done the exact same thing! Our “usual” routine was to let the grass get long in the fall and to mow over the leaves on the lawn, to get a chopped up “magic compost mix” that we put on the beds. This year we’re at a new property and the grass was treated with weed and feed, so I can’t use it 🤷♀️
@@WellGroundedGardens that explains why you used a bare bit of ground for your leaf mowing thanks
Dang! If I had seen this when it was still warm and sunny enough to plant the cover crop seeds I bought, I'd be doing this now! I pulled out the seeds and saw that two of the ingredients wouldn't winter-kill. I got discouraged about cover cropping and didn't plant any. Next year! Subscribing!
It's kind of insane how few things truly winter kill, even in a climate as cold as mine! Even with the crimping, the leaves, AND my cold weather, I may still need to finish them for good in spring with a silage tarp...but that's fine.
@@WellGroundedGardens I'm in Zone 6a, apparently, formerly 5b. My cover crop would have gone into metal raised beds, which also have some winter kale in them. I couldn't figure out how I would kill it off in the spring. I'll know better next time.
How long was that cover crop growing before the video?
Planted a week before Labor Day and terminated around Halloween
I haven't even thought about our garden - still moving and fixing things. Thanks for the video and reminding me about the garden lol
Mine didn’t go in until June, because we were still moving in. I am VERY much feeling this comment. 😂
Very nice tutorial, detailed yet succinct! And please protect those pretty eyes with safety goggles when you weed whack!!! Cheers.
Good call on the safety goggles!
Agree
My father used leaves every year in his garden. Didn't turn over the soil until early spring. His garden was impressive with plant towering over us. With so much growth one would think the food production would suffer. It did not.
I do like the blocks for your boarders. I use them for keeping my hives off the ground.
My computer sent me to your youtube video. I'm going to watch a few more. As I liked this one I'll likely subscribe.
Your dad sounds like somebody that I would admire! Love your user name, by the way. :)
Wow ! Great video ! GROW YOUR SOIL ! ADD ORGANIC MATERIAL !
It’s paying dividends this year for sure! I’ve got some VERY happy squash and tomato plants.
thank you , excellent how to putting the garden beds to rest for the winter.
I’m glad you liked it!
Excellent video. A lot of work that will definitely pay-back the following harvest season. Thank you for posting.
Appreciate the note! And yes lots of work but like you said, dealing with lousy soil (speaking from painful experience) is way more work all year.
I have a fenced 20'x30' garden area with raised beds that have 24" walkways, in the walk ways I put down an old rubber conveyer belt, I lay cardboard on the conveyer belt and then cover the entire garden with 12" of leaves and when they settle I add more leaves. The leaves in the walkways get trampled by foot traffic, the cardboard under the leaves in the walk ways attracts earth worms and holds moisture. The material in the walkways breaks down and every 3 years I shovel all the rich composted dirt that has been created in the walkways back into the raised bed and start the process again. In spring I pull the leaves from the raised beds into the walkways and after I plant my crops use those partially composted leaves for mulching the plants. This also helps with weed control in the garden.
We’ve got a somewhat similar approach. Curious-why the conveyor belt? Was the cardboard not enough for weed suppression?
@@WellGroundedGardens the conveyor belt started out as a permanent weed block and walking surface but also provides a solid surface to shovel the composted soil from to put it in garden beds and my walkways never get muddy no matter how much it rains
This was great! I've had cover crop seeds for 2 years now not really knowing what to do with it. Zone 3 makes me so confused as to how to effectively do this in such a short time. I'm now thinking of ways to use a season just for soil building. I have several bags of leaves. It's great to see the process and not just hear the theory.
I’ve got the same issue but less so (zone 3 is tough!!!). Our winters don’t get as cold but our growing season is pretty short; over time I’ve focused more and more on cool-season crops and using the winters for soil health, so that they can support high-density plantings in the summers.
@@WellGroundedGardens agreed. I too am focusing more on building healthy bio rich and loamy soil.
Just a thought, can you use cold frames with plastic covers to extend your growing season? I am in zone 7, so don’t have the same challenges as you, but here lots of gardeners will have plant crops weeks earlier than they normally would, and top with a cold frame.
Thanks so much for sharing, this was very informative❣️ I was looking for some information on how to do this for my garden next year and was lucky enough to find you❣️💋💖🦋
I’m so glad! Let me know how it goes. :)
Excellent ! Fantastic job showing how to build / enhance your soil with myriad benefits! I really enjoyed your video! All the best from Virginia Beach, Virginia 😊🎉
Thank you! And, I love that part of the country. 😁
I love this video for the explanation and demonstration is very well done.Thanks for your excellent video.
Thank you! Not the easiest one to film but I’m glad it was helpful 👍
Thank you thank you THANK YOU!! This was a fantastic video!! I have never seen someone demonstrate this type of bed amendment using cover crops then leaves, smashing them down the way you do for a backyard residential garden. Even though I watch A LOT of gardening videos from highly skilled gardeners I still have never seen exactly this done before. I have a six 4'x12' raised garden beds, container gardens, edible landscape gardens & a micro fruit tree forest.
Ooh! I’m jealous of your food forest, even a small one. I’m trying to design one, now, for future chickens. And thanks for the kind words!
Girl you got so many views!! Well deserved, been following your channel for a while and it's been a wealth of knowledge. Kudos!
Thanks! Also: this is weird 😂😂😂
Brilliant way to build soil!
Thanks! The proof will be next spring, but I’m excited about it!
I used the layering winter cover crop technique in my zone 8a garden years ago as well. We didn't get any snow, so I just pinned some net over top to keep the leaves from blowing away. That spring I had the nicest soil I ever had in that garden.
The soil underneath truly is phenomenal!
Thank you for your video. I have had cover crops the last two years in my urban garde. The first year I just sprinkled the seeds on the soil and raked them in. The birds and termites thought it was 'n fast-food drive through this year I took time and made rows and planted them under ground. Was much better. I planted them between my flowers so couldn't use the weed eater to cut them so I uses a sizzor. That was a heck of a job. What I do is cut them down once and leave the mulch in place and they grow back again then I cut them down again and just before summer cut them right back to the roots so I get there living mulch harvests. I live in South Africa so no snow here. I love your idea of using the plank to break the stems. I don't have low beds like yours. Well done with all the hard work
Thanks! Birds came through and took out all of my carrot seeds, one year. I feel your pain. 😕
So beautiful garden ❤
Thanks!
Great video, so clear, factual and concise. Just subscribed, thank you!
Thanks! I’m glad it was useful. 🙂
Amen the above comment!!
Add ditto to subscribed 👍🏻😊🌿 Thanks a million for coming on youtube and sharing your knowledge and experience 👌🏻
God bless 🙏🏻
ThankYou!!!! What I’ve been searching for for years!!! Explained & showed so well!!!💚
Awesome! I’m glad to hear it!
I don't live in Michigan, nor do I live in a zone remotely close to that of Michigan and never plan to. Having said that, I simply had to subscribe. Thank you so much for such a fantastic, practical video,, and I'm sure there will be many tips and tricks along the way, regardless of zoning! I've never crimped cover crops, but definitely something I'll be doing in the future. Brilliant video! Thanks a million!
Our winters are no joke, but fall is gorgeous 😂. Glad this one was useful!
This is the most informative cover crop and over wintering video I have come across! Commitment of time! I have always wanted to do cover crops but didn’t understand the whole process
I’m glad that it’s helpful-and once you start using them, it’s hard to go back. :)
excellent information.
Thanks! I’m glad it’s helpful. :)
Love the cover crop info. This is so valuable. Nobody shows this.
I’m so glad!
Oh, Thank you! I feel so lucky to find this video! You have confirmed that my plan will work to improve a small area for a new lawn. Your garden is so tidy! I am a backyard flower "farmer" and this will work great in my beds waiting for spring! Thank you so very much for your clear explanation and method! I can't wait to see how this all works for me. I ordered Vetch, Winter wheat, Field Peas, Annual Rye, Red Clover, and Daikon Radish. The small area for lawn is compacted and the soil is pretty bare. I am planting in Zone 9b (California). It will be planted by 9/17 with our first frost date not until Dec. 15. IF I have to put a small cover to protect and keep growing it would be pretty simple, as it is a really small area. Wish me luck!!!!!
Sounds awesome! The daikon in particular was super helpful for compaction. 👍 Hope it does the same for yours. :)
Thank you! My goal is to have a garden like yours. Been trying for 14 years but we get so many weeds i cant keep up so now im learning about over wintering and layering organic materials.
Mine is still very much a work in progress-mulches and sheer stubbornness eventually overcame my weed pressure but the rabbits ate almost everything this year. Next year’s battle 🤷♀️
Thank you for a great video, Fall starts in 2 days shuting down my garden and your info was very helpful
You’re very welcome-glad it’s useful. :)
I do the same thing!
My entire garden including raised beds are covered in chopped up leaves and straw. Compost pile is completely full again after getting 2 wheelbarrows full of ready to go compost.
My winter crop consists of 50+ garlic cloves in raised beds. Im from SE michigan living in west central iowa now. Same grow zone. Different humidity.
My neighbor has 15 bags of leaves im taking to add into the garden (no chemicals).
Free leaves are the best! I’ve been known to pick them up, curbside-though not if they have many grass clippings in the mix, as those are always suspect for chemicals. My garden was super late going in this year, but I’m hoping to try garlic next year!
This is so smart.
So glad this came up! I'm off to do this in my garden. Regards from far north California! Zone 9
I just planted mine last week! And I’m jealous of your zone. 😁
Thanks for this! I've piled raked leaves in my garden but didn't think to tamp them down. I'll do that this weekend.
Also, your garden is SO NEAT AND TIDY! It's lovely!
If I don’t tamp mine down they go EVERYWHERE. And the garden only recently became tidy-it’s been a hot mess most of the year 😜
Here in the UK this works great but we dont get so much snow so I have used old carpet or felted wrapping fabric on top to insulate it...the mower idea is awesome I like that one a lot
I have in the past left a cover on plots so that moles and other small critters get underneath and start digging everything up, by the time you pull the cover off its all nicely turned over and loose so you can rake and plant straight into it.
Fantastic little instructional video
Thankyou for sharing
I never thought that I’d LIKE snow, until I needed the soil insulation 🙂
That's an informative video. I live in a similar climate zone and I have a similar practice at end-of-season. I remove my veggie plants by cutting off all growth above the soil level, leaving the roots intact. Then I lay down about two or three inches of homemade and commercial compost then cover with a thick layer of leaves. I use plastic snow fence on top of the leaves. I weigh down the snow fence with whatever is handy. In the spring, I remove the leaves for composting.
I like your approach of using a variety of cover crops near the end of each season - especially those cover crops that don't survive through the winter. This is compatible with my no-dig method.
Thanks for the video.
Your approach sounds awesome! I may steal the plastic snow fence idea 👍
That was excellent! Thank you for taking the time to make this video.
You’re welcome! I’n glad it hit the mark :)
Ok brilliant and hard, hard work! Thank you!
Worth it! My soil life is incredibly happy.
Thank you, this helps me tremendously! Hugs! 🥰
I’m so glad!
Love this video so much. I think I have missed the boat on planting cover crop this year...except possibly rye but I did plant some peas this year not knowing the benefits. Not many but enough to help a little. We have one tree that drops loads and loads of leaves and this is our first year being able to use them back in the garden along with adding them to 2 new beds that I'm starting to prep for next year. Thanks for sharing these amazing cover crop tips. I agree with other commenters...it was really good to see this process. :)
I’m glad! It was a pain to film and I almost stopped halfway. Glad I stuck it out, after all 👍
@@WellGroundedGardens 😂 I bet and you have a large garden space too.
Seriously…this was my first year with the larger size, and even with only 1/2 of the beds planted, it was a LOT.
What fantastic ideas!! Please show the results in the Spring, and thank you soooo very much!!
I definitely will!
Very interesting techniques. I mulch with leaves and use cover crops on other beds but never thought about combining the two methods.
I only started combining them last year and to be honest it was a last minute attempt to find a use for our ridiculous quantity of leaves But I like it!
@@WellGroundedGardens I have a lot of leaves also. I always stock piled and used to mix with greens in my compost but lately I try and keep the slower decomposing oaks in a separate pile and let them sit for 2 years until they make leaf compost on their own.
Great video. Thank you so much. God Bless
Thank you 😊
Great video! I love using leaves in my garden. The few years ago I stopped tilling the ground {for the most part}. I love it and it has worked out well for me. The fall garden is coming to an end. I'm going to leave some carrots in ground to store. 🤞Keep up the good work!
Thanks! I didn’t get as many fall and winter crops in as I’d like (late start this year) but I did manage a bed of overwintering carrots. Fingers crossed!
Do you have some good no till gardening video to suggest?
@@krh7150 th-cam.com/video/ZErovOnP8QI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=zPvx_ALQANiadA-p
@@krh7150 This is one of them that got me started. I hope it helps.
I feel like this has become a cliche answer, but all of Charles Dowding’s content is great
I think it'd be easier just to run the mulching mower with no bag over the cover crop and the leaves, I don't like using the border so running the mower over is no problem, also I collect moist, half decomposed and sometimes chopped up ones to cover the soil, it stays mostly on the ground, a couple of rains also help to ground it there.
If our mower would fit on the beds, I definitely would’ve done that for method #2. For method #1 I really like the insulating air pocket that’s created by the crimped-over cover crop.
The white radishes the feed store sold me for cover crop, they got huge and died with the freeze..the turnips mostly made it through the winter and bloomed in may/June the next spring.
I originally planted those areas for the cows that winter as we had been in drought and the grass was mostly eaten up.
Did the radishes completely decompose for you? Which zone are you?
Ty for the vid from Maroc! 😊 ( new here, going to watch more from your chanel❤)
Welcome!!! 🤗
Thanks for the suggestions. It's just too much trouble for me. LOL. I just put a layer of grass and a layer of leaves on my beds, mix them up with a shovel, and they are ready by spring.
I did that in our prior (smaller) yard-we just mowed grass and leaves together and dumped them on the beds. The grass at our new place was chemically treated by our builder and I can’t use it in the garden; I’ll go back to that approach once the chemicals are gone but even then I wouldn’t get enough material for the beds given how much larger this garden is.
Wow u am impressed! In one short video I have learned exactly what I need to do!! Ty
Yes! I’m so glad to hear it 😁
Love all the little slug homes you made around the beds. They are going to absolutely love it.
Oh, they do (along with the earthworms). Not an issue to leave in place the next year as a mulch for tomatoes, broccoli or potatoes but you’ll want to rake it off into the compost pile in areas that are getting salad greens or beans.
Great video! I never even heard the background music 😊
Ha, thank you! It’s funny; almost nobody seems to notice the music, but the people that notice, REALLY notice…
Can’t wait to here about what you can grow over the winter!
This is the plan (for next year’s winter garden):
th-cam.com/video/Nhk2J5ZTS-4/w-d-xo.html
This year we’re on a new property and I got too late of a start for any winter crops to mature in time, because we didn’t even have the garden built until June. 😕
I just let my cover crops go all winter, just turn them under in the spring and have had great success with my raised gardens that way.
Nice! Our ground is too muddy in the spring to be worked but if I could, I’d follow that same approach.
If you used no till/permaculture, you would keep the aeration of the roots :)
I like your soil food web practices. Excellent!
Thanks!
Thank you so much for your thorough explanation
You’re very welcome-glad it hit the mark!
Great video, did similar this year, but using manure next year. And after the snow clears in the spring, till in the remainder in to really supercharge your soil and you’ll usually skip the black tarp step.
I don’t own a till so this one is all “woman-power” + stick 🤷♀️
I am reaping the benefits of leaf mulch and tarping in my beds last yearm. So much better water retention and less weeds.
Awesome! I feel like it has also made a noticeable difference in our worm population. Or at least the population near the surface. They seem to love the insulation over winter.
Good Morning
Soil and composition , thanks you for sharing this video.
Very helpful
I’m glad it was helpful!
This is great. A lot of work but very helpful.thank you
Glad it’s helpful!
Thank you for sharing this info😊
I’m glad that it’s useful. :)
Very smart video
Thank you!
I am trying to enrich desert soil here in NW Arizona where we have a lot of caliche and very sandy soils. I have a hard time with loose mulches as we often have very windy days. I like your methods and may try. It only snows 2-3 days each year here. Zone 8B 3,000 foot elevation Mojave Desert. We do have 2 large Fruitless Mulberry trees and 4 Afghan Pines on the property so leaves and pine needles are here.
For sandy soil I often see buckwheat listed as a good cover crop to include; I’m more on the clay end so I don’t use it as often but I do know that it’s HEAVEN for pollinators, in case that’s also a goal of yours. :)
@@WellGroundedGardens Thank you for your kind response and idea.
Thank you for making this video!
You’re welcome! I’m glad it was helpful. :)
Love the raised beds
Thanks! (Physical) labor of love, but worth it
Thank you for the information. I am starting from the ground up, and was looking for something to help feed ghe soil over the winter. Perfect!
Excellent! I’m so glad to hear that it was useful. 😁
I think the best we can do is cover our raised beds with leaves. We had tons.😳 Thank you for this very informative video.
Just adding plain leaves, alone, is also a great option-adds organic content and trace minerals. 👍 Consider the cover crop as “gilding the lily”
Thank you much for this! I've been using chopped leaves on my garden for many rears, and recently wondered how I could use cover crops on my very small garden which I garden no-dig. Thank you!!!
I’m glad it was helpful!
I tried this last year it worked out very well love you video
Awesome! Did you take off the material in the spring, to compost separately, or did you plant plant straight into it? I’m debating which one to go with next year.
Very good information 👌 Thank you ❤️ Subscribed! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I’m glad this is useful! Lots of video editing to make this one happen, but I think it was worth it ❤️
What great information! Thanks for sharing!
I’m glad it was helpful!
Great info thanks for sharing! Love seeing other Michigan gardeners here on TH-cam! We also talk about winterizing our container garden in our most recent video.
Nice! Michiganders unite :)
excellent video , thank you !
Thanks for taking the time to comment! And I’m glad it was helpful. :)
Glad your in Michigan! Im in Manistee Co zone 5b. . Covering with leaves and straw.
Greetings! We’re Wayne County, zone 6A 😁
@@WellGroundedGardensThanks your project with your garden beds look very successful. Haven't tried dicon radish..
I water my material heavily and then black tarp it so it cooks and after a few weeks I go to the netting. I must use netting because squirrels and turkey will dig up everything. Also, if I can, I'll have shredded cardboard in my mix.
I can relate to the squirrels but at least I don’t deal with too many turkeys. 😳 Your approach sounds great!
Very informative!
I’m glad!
I'm impressed 😊
Thanks! Questionable life choices but good soil 😂
This is great! Thank you for sharing.
Glad it’s helpful!
Excellent video. Very learningful. Nice quick pace. I'll def try this fall cc mix. Daikons too. Btw, I do have a winter garden going for the first time. I built a simple greenhouse with a bamboo frame on a 4x8 raised bed. Bok choi, kale and spinach. Still harvesting now.
I’m jealous! I didn’t get my winter crops into the ground in time and am down to a couple of pitiful kale plants 😕
Thank you for your video. In case you didnt know:)) you could eat any radish tops...you could sauteed them with garlic as a side dish, add to sweet potatoes as a main dish and use them in soups as greens...full of vitamins...better then spinash..little bit bitter which is great for your liver. Just saying:)) Thank you again!
I’ve ventured as far as mustard greens but haven’t yet tried radish greens…I know they’re edible and I think if I let the daikons overwinter and then flower, their (immature, green) seed pods are also edible…on my list for a future season!
SHE IS MAKING CROP CIRCLES‼️🙀
I had this exact thought! World’s most boring, linear, crop circles.
Just found your channel and had to subscribe immediately! Love your bed layout and style of your videos. Can't wait to watch more videos.
Hey, thanks! Things are slowing down for the season but I’m hoping to still cover one or two topics 👍
This is so helpful! We literally have no deciduous trees to provide leaves on our farm, but I do have livestock compost. I'm thinking I could use that, don't you think?
You’d want to check for weed seed level in the material + any hormones or medicines fed to the livestock, but in general compost would be awesome for this 👍
This was great. I've read about it and have seen a couple videos but they weren't as thorough.
Glad it’s helpful!
Wonderful idea I need to try this! 😊👍❤️
Thanks! I’ll plan to do my usual update video next year and show how it worked. 👍
Instead of weed wacking it and raking it up then moving it over on top of the leaves mixing it with the leaves mowing that all together and then moving it again over on top the bed I would suggest just throwing the leaves on top/in amongst the cover crop and mow it.
Keep a rake around to prop up the cover crop for another mowing because some of it will get laid over. If you have enough leaves it will magically stop your mower from having a 1" layer of sopping wet cover crop caked on the inside of your deck.
Then if you think it needs to be shorter you could always weed wack it lower and then cover all of that with another 2" or 3 inches of shredded leaves.
I suppose some people would say you would pack down the soil with the weight of the mower but my soil is always plenty soft ever since I stopped tilling and just used cover crop and leaves.
This usually kills most of the cover crop if it's late enough in the fall but some of them will pop up and I just leave them for the winter and either let them continue the next spring or I slip a trowel down and pop their root early in the spring and leave them in place to rot.
If I just mow and then add 3" of shredded leaves I would say it kills ?? 75 - 85% of it and if I chop it down further with the weed wacker and then put the 3" of leaves on it is nearly 100% kill. I don't usually do that because like you said it is just such a mess.
Try arugula as a cover crop - it grows so fast and is tough. Mine grows 3-4 feet and has white flower spires that the bees love and that look really beautiful with the red and pink poppies I have mixed in and the hairy vetch that starts later and grows slower will have something to climb up. The only thing that sucks about it is that it is WET when you mow or trim it - you really need to throw dry material into the mix or you'll be scraping your lawn mower deck and be washing the green out of your hands for hours afterward if you're as lazy as I am about going and getting a scraper from the garage. Of course in the spring and early summer it is hard to find dry material to throw into the mix
It is very competitive and it will seed itself like mad but I have never had trouble controlling it. The seeds all fall fairly close to the plant and you can propane torch the small seedlings if you don't want them. I leave some of it standing over winter. It will grow a little whenever it is not super cold (zone 6) and will be green and growing before anything else other than kale.
I had the same idea of mowing it in place but we couldn’t make the width work (from CMU bed edge to the path in the middle) vs our lawn mower. If I’d thought of that, sooner, I might’ve standardized the beds to a different width. And I freaking love arugula! I always let mine go to seed for the bees and when I collect the seeds inevitably I get a second “volunteer” crop. It’s our favorite salad green, though, so I don’t even try to dissuade it.
@@WellGroundedGardens Oh cool. I didn't see any arugula in the video so I assumed you didn't. I've never seen anyone else use it as a cover crop
@jeffa847 I’d call it an accidental cover crop in my case-I have some beds in the back of our property that I use for seed saving of a few crops every year, and it’s become overrun with arugula but I like it. It keeps down the weeds, and their flowers encourage pollination of the ones that I’m keeping for seed. Plus, it doesn’t cross with any other brassicas like kale, so it doesn’t affect what seeds I can save 👍
What a fantastic and novel idea
Thanks! I’ll do a follow-up in the spring showing how the two methods turned out-for some compare and contrast
Thank You for sharing, it is simple and efective, I am wondering what would happen if you added some rested for a while, but soaken woodchips ????? I know earthworms love them too. I most appreciatte your work.
I use those in the pathway down the center of each bed and can confirm that worms LOVE them. 👍
Thank you for all the valuable information that you provide here.
QUESTION: I live in Massachusetts and would like to know if it is too late to plant the oats and peas and if not, from where do you purchase your seeds?
Thank you for any information you can provide.
I usually plant them around Labor Day-I think you’d be fine. Even if they grow to 70% of their max, it’s still helpful for the soil. I buy from various places depending on what’s on sale but mostly Urban Farmer or American Meadows. www.ufseeds.com/product/field-peas-and-oats-blend-blends/CCPO.html.
How do you terminate? I’ll keep watching. Thanks for video suggestions.
With the super-high tech stick and rope. :)