Please explain "cover crops"

[big brown horse]

As some of you know this only my second year having a big girl garden and I keep hearing the term cover crops. I sorta understand, but not really.

My mother is the gardener, but she doesn't use them back in TX

 

[noobiechickenlady]

This is the way my gardner friend explained it to me.

Think of it as a living mulch. It grows and keep weed seeds from starting so much, since they grow so quick.
Then, when it's time to plant, you kill it or mow it & it adds organic matter to the soil, plus all the goody micronutrients that it pulled up from deeper in the ground.
Plus, it conditions your soil, clover will break up a hard or heavy soil.

 

[big brown horse]

Thank you! Now I can visualize it.

 

[valmom]

It's also good becaust the roots hold the soil during mud season and you don't get as much erosion of your hard built up beds of good, non-rocky soil.

 

[Wildsky]

:/ I'd like to find something the animals won't eat - that would work for me. my back yard is bare, in summer all I get are ugly weeds.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

My mom taught me that clover was a pretty weed, I kept wondering why someone would want to plant a weed where they were growing a garden

Heard a quote once and I wish I could remember who said it and the exact wording but: There are no such things as weeds, only plants we haven't discovered uses for.

Here is a really good link for you BBH.
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/covercrop.html

 

[big brown horse]

Thanks!!

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Many farmers use cover crops, especially through winter with Winter Rye.

Cover crops have multiple purposes. For example, winter rye. It grows during the winter when cash crops won't. So after harvesting their cash crop, farmers plant winter rye. This keep the soil from eroding or becoming pure mud. The winter rye also pulls energy from the sun through photosynthesis as well as minerals from the soil. Then come spring, they take their tractor and plow the whole cover crop into the soil. Turning it into valuable mulch and also increasing the nutrients in their soil.

Cover crops keep the soil and nutrients from eroding away. Then at the end of their cycle, they are used as mulch and fertilizer. Because plants pull energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil, so cash crops rob the soil(because they are harvested) and cover crops improve the soil(because they are mulched into the soil).

 

[big brown horse]

Thank you!

 

[Beekissed]

BBH, I also use cover crops as green mulch, which means I plant my regular veggies, hill or hoe them as needed and then plant clover over the soil at their base.

This is a nitrogen fixing cover crop that helps keep nitrogen near the roots of my veggies where it's needed most and also blocks out weed growth.....an added benefit, the clover attracts pollinators to my garden, keeps the soil loose and moist, and is then eaten by my livestock at the end of gardening season.