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Compost And Cover Crops

02 April 2019 - 13:11 | Version 17 |
See also PermaOrchard

General Resources

General resources and articles (and specific suggestions:

Specific Recommendations

  • Spring general: 60% field peas, 25% oats, and 15% hairy vetch
  • top choices:
    • Crimson Clover - Plant May 15 - Sep 5, 15-30#/acre
    • Red Clover - plant April 15 - Sept, 6-20#/acre
    • Sweet Clover - Plant April 15 - Oct, 6-20#/acre
    • Hairy Vetch - plant July - Aug, 20-40#/acre
    • Field Pea - Plant Apr-May & Aug-Oct, 70-120#/acre
    • Buckwheat - Plant Apr-Aug, 60-80#/acre
  • Use at least 5 different plants or 3 functional groups
  • Minimum of 20# per acre of seed (combined weight) to get good coverage and weed suppression. More is ok.
  • Buckwheat:
    • Buckwheat Cover Crop Handbook pdf: Buckwheat planting guide. Includes nice planting guides for buckwheat for preparing new ground and before strawberries.
    • 70 pounds per acre = 0.161 lbs (2.57 ounces) per per 100 sq ft. Equals ~¾ of a cup of seeds.
    • Possibly cover the seeds with dry leaves or soil to prevent birds from eating them.
    • After a week, inspect the field and reseed any gaps over 1 foot in diameter.
    • Mow no later than 10 days after plants begin to flower (about 6 weeks after seeding). Will return the most organic matter when taken down 5 to 6 weeks after seeding.
    • If re-seeding, incorporate and reseed a few days later.
    • The grain (seed) is ripe around 8 to 10 weeks
    • Can plant with squash and then mow and use as mulch for squash.
    • Sowing immediately after incorporating fresh organic matter can result in greatly reduced stands, either from seed rot or predation. A week is a sufficient delay after incorporating pea or bean residue in the summer.
    • After mowing or cutting, the buckwheat residue can either be left on the surface or turned into the soil, depending on your goal. Mulch left on the surface will decompose and release nutrients more slowly, help maintain soil stability, and help suppress weeds, Sullivan said. Residue that is turned into the soil will decompose and release nutrients more quickly, but tillage can also break up the stable soil aggregates you have created.
    • For more info, see Buckwheat Cover Crop Handbook pdf.
  • Turning In Annual Cover Crops:
    • The best time to till in your cover crop is when 50% of the flowers are in bloom. By turning in the cover crop while it is still lush, the cover will be rapidly decomposed by soil microbes who will then return nitrogen and other elements to the soil for the next crop. If the cover crop is shredded, the cover will break down faster. It is important to till the cover into the soil as quickly as possible after mowing, as the cover loses nitrogen and carbon to the atmosphere very rapidly if left exposed to the sun. For most cover crops, approximately 2/3 of the nitrogen in the cover crop is in the above ground portion. Depending on the quantity of organic material, the breakdown process will take 10-21 days if the soil is cultivated regularly.
    • If it is too difficult for you to incorporate the cover crop, a second option would be to cut the tops at ground level and put the tops into the compost pile to break down into humus.
    • If the soil remains moist during this breakdown process, no additional water is necessary. However, if the soil is dry when the cover is turned under or loses substantial moisture during the cultivating process, a light irrigation can do wonders to stimulate breakdown.
    • Source: groworganic.com - Cover Crops

Notes for Spring cover crops

  • Two main options:
    • let grow until almost seeding & mow to ground. May need to turn under or rototil wheat & winter rye to kill.
    • turn under in early when it's more tender. May need to leave for several weeks before plantains.
  • Buckwheat is a good pre-season covercrop for beds not planted early. Plant in early April(?) and ready to reincorporate mid-May.
    • Buckwheat doesn't tolerate frost, or even cold temperatures. The coolest temperature it can tolerate is about 50°F. Therefore, you should not plant buckwheat too early in the spring.

Notes for fall cover crop

  • Oats and field peas
    • Plant mid-August-Sept
    • Mix: 70% peas/30% oats by weight
    • 5 lbs covers 2,000-4,000 sqaure feet
    • Rake well into soil
  • Buckwheat can also be planted as fall/winter cover crop. Winter die-off will be severe but will still provide some cover. Don’t let the plants mature in the fall unless you have a plan that deals with the seeds that are produced.

Calculate Seeding Rate per 100 Square Feet

Pound per acre

Choosing the Right Cover Crop

The following excerpt was retrieved from Feeding the Soil: Cover Crops before that page was taken down using way back machine.

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.
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