Winter Kill Cover Crops

Using cover crops is kind of new for me.

This is only the second year I have planted them and I did very little last year since it was my first time - guess you could say it was more of an experiment. I never put them in my whole garden since I got them in too late. After all I still had Summer and Fall/Winter crops all over the place.

But this year I made more of an effort to get the Summer and Fall crops out of the way so I could cover crop the whole garden.

Now what I have found is I hate these crops which are planted in the Fall and get minimal growth but they burst out in the Spring and bloom around May to June. Sure they are pretty but I for one do not want to wait around until May to June to plant my garden.

I always try to have my cool-season crops growing by March if the soil will cooperate by then.

So last year I did find one variety which was known as winter kill. It was an Austrian field pea/oats mix of seeds.

Because we had a hard frost just 2 days ago most of my beds are already dead and dying off. It's kind of funny because I had annual flowers which survived the frost but the cover crop did not.

I'll get it all cut down and very lightly mixed into the top of the soil today but has anyone else found a variety of cover crop which has the characteristic of winter kill? I'd like to change up to another variety as the different seasons end so I can give my soil a different diet each year to help maintain nutrient variability.


Comments

  • Hassena
    Hassena Posts: 345 ✭✭✭

    Hi @greyfurball

    Cover crops can keep growing when we are ready to plant. I had a similar situation with red clover. I don't mind too much because the flowers can be dried for medicine. They are great for women's issues and calcium. This summer I cut the clover back because of powdery mildew and our squash forest.

    I think I've asked you before, maybe we were talking about sunflowers? What growing zone are you?

    Is your garden goal to grow a cover crop over winter? or to have a summer cover crop?

    Annual rye grass and wheat can be grown all winter and then weed eated down. Rye will dye back in the summer heat.

    It seems most winter cover crops do a little better planted in august. We plant our cover crop of oats and clover in August. We are a growing zone 7a.

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    @Hassena

    I am in zone 6b but keep your fingers crossed on that one. It seems they like to change it to 7a one year, 6b another year and just keep going back and forth, I mentioned it to a local organic farmer a few months ago we were in 6b (he thought we were in 7a) and he had no clue it had been changed. I mentioned to him it had been a year and a half since they changed it. The one time it got changed in the middle of summer. I've learned just to ignore it, it's a useless waste of time keeping track where they put me from season to season.

    As for your response, yes I know there is all kinds of cover crops and they will regrow back after cutting down. There's the problem. Unless I have winter kill (which the peas and oats mix is a true winter kill crop) , I get stuck in mid to late Spring with all this re-growth. I planted buckwheat last Fall and I have been fighting with it all this spring to summer long. Sure it is pretty when it gets to its blooming stage (the pollinators love it). And I am careful to get it cut before it gets to its drying stage. But my garden is really spread out but it is VERY compact. Sounds dumb but it is possible.

    I do not grow like most seed packs state. I broadcast most of my seeds (kale, lettuces, beets, beans, turnips, celery, all herbs, carrots and on and on.) Then I clean out a 12"X12" square and place one tomato there. I do this all over the garden with peppers and different tomato varieties. Then in that 12X12 square I plant one cabbage, 4 onions, one basil etc so that they grow faster than the tomato to harvest. So all my peppers and tomatoes are trimmed about 24" up at the bottom of the bush to allow space for whatever I have underneath it.

    So when my cover crop is re-growing in there, it's just flat out in the way when it tries to hoard it's way back in each spring and summer. Since I broadcast all my other crops, they are already tight. I pick them very young, young, small etc. all the time which allows thinning. So I am using them at all stages of growth. Then for what I use to preserve (canning or freezing) they have been thinned enough by then so those grow to full regular size. So as this summer has shown, all that buckwheat in its re-growth stage just is flat out in the way.

    But the winter kill peas/oat mix was perfect since as soon as we had our first hard frost, the peas oat mix was gone and I could till it in before the ground crusted over and got hard. But again, then I am never allowing my garden to have a different nutrient blend from year to year.

    So far I have not found a solution to this but if it's there I will figure it out so that I can continue to plant as I do so that I can continue to get large harvests since I share my harvests with so many friends, family, neighbors and still have enough left to preserve for my own home.

  • Ferg
    Ferg Posts: 285 ✭✭✭

    These is some interesting research with vetch and tomato growing done by the Rodale institute where they planted the tomatoes into the vetch just as the vetch was flowering. Timing is everything, but basically when they plant the tomatoes they bend the vetch down and if it is the right timing then the vetch stays down and acts both as a nitrogen source and as a mulch. It's pretty cool.

    Here's a link

    https://rodaleinstitute.org/science/articles/growing-vegetables-with-cover-crop-mulch/

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    @Ferg

    Just read over your link and yes, I can see for farm production how they could make this work but I am not into that type of farming. I'm just a small plot (about 2500 sq ft) backyard gardener which utilizes continuous sow techniques so I can get the largest harvest possible out of my space.

    That's one of the reasons I am not happy with cover crops. It's really hard to keep a continuous sow cycle going with different types of crops when those cover crops are always in the way.

    Just for curiosity sake though, after I get my spring bed emptied next year... the bed where I follow up with tomatoes and peppers, I will add some cover crop seed between the bushes and still add my plants under the tomatoes and see how it all works. Then the next year I can place the tomatoes/peppers where the cover crop was and put the cover crop under where the tomatoes were.

    Maybe this way I can get the nutrient availability I am looking for and still keep a rotation that seems to work for each variety of plant families.

    Let you know next summer how this test is going.

  • Ferg
    Ferg Posts: 285 ✭✭✭

    Hi @greyfurball - the tomato/vetch cover cropping has been done in small gardens as well, with very small plots.

    Since you have a smaller area, have you tried poly-planting (also called companion planting)?

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    @Ferg I always companion plant my entire garden every year. But I am not doing it as a repellent etc. I am doing it as a nutrient builder for my soil

    The peas/oat mix has the superlative quality of dying off (to be plowed under) as soon as a heavy frost hits it. All the others I know of just kind of hang back and stop growing in the fall but then in spring they burst forward with heavy growth and blooming. While that's great for someone with a larger area, for those of us which every square inch needs to be fruitful, having a garden full of winter crops coming to life every spring is just downright inconvenient.

  • erikawinterton
    erikawinterton Posts: 98 ✭✭✭

    So why do a cover crop? I am guessing I have never heard of this because I live in a airid and cold zone. Everything dies in the winter here.

  • silvertipgrizz
    silvertipgrizz Posts: 1,990 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @greyfurball

    @erikawinterton

    This company has 2 groups of cover crops..cool and warm. I just ordered the mustard for this fall..I love what this crop will impart into my area. I'm considering the daikon type radish for the warm for next early spring..not sure yet as I live in a flood plain. Interesting information here that you might find useful:


  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    @erikawinterton

    Since you have never tried cover crops you may be surprised. The whole purpose of a cover crop is to rebuild the nutrition which is lost in your soil each year. So different cover crops add different nutrient sources, whatever your soil may need.

    So yes, these are planted in the late Summer to Fall for us in a 4 season climate. The oats/peas mix though is a high nitrogen source for your soil. It takes about 4 - 6 weeks to seed, grow and then hopefully you are ready to start going into your winter season. A hard frost though will kill off all the plants and then its purpose is to work it into your soil before it freezes and it will decompose over the winter so in Spring you already have extra added nutrition in your soil for Spring planting.

    Some cover crops are good for 2 season climates (warm and hot), some for 3 season climates and some for 4 season climates. The majority of them though are sowed in Fall, get in 4-6 weeks of growth and then they hibernate over the Fall months. But as the Spring rolls around the crop reinvigorates and grows and grows, most going from green growth to a flowering stage and then to a dieback stage. But all of this usually takes until the middle of May to early June.

    Since I generally start working my garden as soon as the soil can be worked (anywhere from March thru April for me) I am not waiting around for June so I can get that cover crop to its harvest.

    That's why I am interested in knowing if anyone else has ever tried cover crops which has the winter kill capability.

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    Thanks @silvertipgrizz I will check it out as soon as I can.

  • erikawinterton
    erikawinterton Posts: 98 ✭✭✭

    @greyfurball thank you so much for the explanation! I suppose I have always covered my garden with compost each year before the snow hits. Maybe this isn't exactly drawing nutrients from the soil to be in a more bioavaible form, but it seems to do the trick. I will look into this more. Thanks again!

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    @erikawinterton I also add compost to the soil top every year end but I do it after the cover crop has gone thru its winter kill stage. That way my cover crop has something on top of it all winter to help it decompose and that way the rain/snow does not leach the nutrients out of my compost/cover crop mix since they are sort of blended together.

    It all sounds like a lot more work but it really isn't. And the benefit you will see with your soil is very advantageous since you aren't spending that much money...especially if you go out and buy compost. A few pack of seeds is a whole lot cheaper than the bags of compost from the store.

    And the nice thing about it, you don't need as much compost to top off all your beds since you have all that cover crop which is adding more nutrition than those store bought bags of compost ever will.

    So I was hesitant at first to add another layer of work to my gardening schedule so the first year I did it I only did one 4X12 bed. The increased growth and harvest I got that next season was enough to convince me I didn't do that much work to make up for the benefits I got from those seeds of cover crop.

    So if you have the chance get one pack of winter kill (or most of the time with the peas/oat mix I use you have to buy one pack of each and I mix them together before I seed. It is Austrian pea mix and oats.) Just do it to one bed or use up that one mixture wherever you like and see if it works for you also.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @erikawinterton Cover crops are used on a regular basis on organic farms in my province (zones 2-4...I think there might be up to 5). Clover is the most common. Fall rye can be used, but will be grown to harvest stage.

    Fall rye puts an enzyme into the soil that inhabits growth of weeds.

  • erikawinterton
    erikawinterton Posts: 98 ✭✭✭

    Wow this is great. I definitely am looking into cover crop seeds this year.


    Thanks for sharing links!