Cover Cropping: A Useful Tool for the Home Gardener or Save it for the Professionals?
A patch of cover crop on the side of my house
I feel like cover cropping is coming up more and more on my gardening feeds as the best thing today for our gardens. And I definitely understand why it is beneficial for farmers and industrial growers. It improves biodiversity, prevents soil erosion, improves soil heath, and prevents weed growth. But is there any benefit for small scale people like myself. Backyard growers who have raised beds or small in ground gardens? How can we use cover cropping? Should we bother? Is there any benefit?
A cover crop mix from Urban Farmer.
What is cover cropping? Cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil not for the purposes of being harvested. These would be planted between crop rotations or during off seasons when you would not be growing crops. Some examples are rye, buckwheat, radish, peas, mustard, and alfalfa. Their primary job is to enhance the soil. They improve top soil structure, water retention, capture CO2 and increase organic matter into the soil. They can also prevent weeds from growing and keep some pests at bay. So for large scale farmers, they prevent erosion of soil and also help to capture nitrogen and nutrients back into the soil for future plantings. They can bring water and moisture into the soil as well. All this prevents farmers from having to use expensive and potentially toxic fertilizers on crops and regenerates the soil over time for future generations of crops and growers. Some growers make their own mixes but you can purchase mixes from most seed companies at this point.
So I was of the mindset that I should cover my established beds each year with a layer of compost to benefit my beds and maintain there nutrients etc. I see a lot of people who add in fertilizers to their soil each year, but I am not a big fan. Not that there are not a lot of great organic and safe fertilizers, it is really just that I don’t really want to pay the money. I am growing food for my family. I don’t sell the food. I don’t care if it is imperfect. I am not trying to increase yields to maximize profits. I am growing food because:
1. I like to do it
2. It tastes better
3. I want to offset my grocery bill a bit
If I spent a ton of money on all these fertilizers and soil helpers, it would really add up and would trump the whole offset my grocery bill thing. We do compost at home so we have been able to incorporate some of our own compost into our beds as well as I have purchased bulk compost. It tends to be quite cheap especially if the beds themselves just needs more volume. But now I hear compost might not be the best thing for my beds. It might not be providing the nutrients my plants need and there may be a better way.
2 week growth of cover crop mix after sowing
So I bought some of these cover cropping mixes. I decided I would cover crop some of my established beds and see if there was a difference next year. Also I wanted to see if it kept the beds free of weeds. Making less work for me in the spring. I also want to see if I can use my cover crop as a mulch by simply leaving it in place in the spring and planting directly into my soil without removing the dead cover. The cover crop seeds are not cheap. However, if this method replaced my need for mulch next year, it would be worth it.
I also decided to use cover cropping to help me establish a new bed. I wanted to add a bed on the side of our house where we get a good amount of sun but have literally nothing growing. I feel like a lot of suburban houses may have this issue. We have our “pretty” beds in the front of the house but the sides and back of the house are sometimes neglected or empty. I would like to grow corn and squash on the side of the house next year but I needed to establish a bed there. I really didn’t have much of a budget for another load of compost, and I did not want to till the soil. Our soil is very hard clay and frankly not very nutrient dense. I have tried to grow directly in it before and it did not go well. I knew I needed to do something to bring water and nutrients down into the soil while also loosening it. I saw online people using cover cropping as a way to jump start new garden beds. So I dumped the small amount of compost from my potato grow bag garden on the side of my house after harvesting the potatoes. Covered it with cover crop seeds, mulched and watered them. That was it. The cover crops grew super fast with very little watering. The bed is looking great. Our plan is to allow the cover crop to die back and use it for mulch in the spring. I also plan on planting some tulips bulbs this fall for us to enjoy down the side of the house in the early spring before we plant the corn and squash. I did not need to cover the ground with plastic to kill the grass, till it or dig it up. I will update next year about this particular bed but this method was far less work than building out raised beds, removing grass, tilling soil, buying loads of dirt and compost, etc. And if it is better for the soil health overall? Win, Win.
I will say the cover crop mix I planted on my “no dig” bed or in ground beds is also looking great. I don’t see any weeds trying to creep back in and it required very little water to grow the crop. I could see doing a mix of covering the beds with compost and cover cropping. My in ground beds may never needs extra compost with the cover cropping method. The raised beds however are another story. I want the benefits of cover cropping, but I will still need to bring in some volume of soil to the beds each year. I could add compost to them then plant the cover crop to help balance out the nutrients and prepare the compost for the following year. We are all about becoming more self sustaining here. I would love nothing more than to use my homemade compost and then just cover crop my beds to maintain their health year to year. Overall, this sounds enticing. Not only is it less physical labor, but it may cost less as well. So I ask you, will you be incorporating regenerative farming on a smaller scale at your home by cover cropping this fall?
