In Your Garden with Jenny Watts

Cover Crops to Improve your Garden

Healthy plants begin with healthy soil. Often, the best way to improve your soil is to
increase the amount of organic matter in it. Doing so will improve the soil structure and increase
the activity of microorganisms that help create a rich, productive soil.
Organic matter is usually added by hauling in truckloads of manure or other compost. But
there is an easier way. By seeding green manure crops in the fall and letting them grow over the
winter, you are growing your own compost which can be turned into the soil next spring, about
three weeks before you are ready to plant the summer garden. These "cover crops" also protect
the soil from erosion, decrease the leaching of nutrients, and reduce compaction caused by winter
rains.
There are two kinds of cover crops: grasses and legumes. Grass cover crops germinate
quickly and put on enough growth in the fall to protect the soil over the winter. Annual ryegrass
is the best plant for breaking up hard soil. It sends down miles of tiny roots adding pounds of
humus to the soil when it decomposes. Winter rye, or ryegrain, is also an annual grass which is
very hardy. It can be planted from late summer to late fall and will grow in poor soils.
Legumes include fava beans, crimson clover and vetch. Legumes are slow to develop in the
fall but grow rapidly the following spring, providing nitrogen and biomass for the summer
vegetable crop. These important crops are able to take nitrogen from the air and convert it into a
form that is usable by plants, thus adding nitrogen to the soil. At the same time, their root
systems loosen and aerate the soil, improving the soil structure.
Crimson clover is an annual which blooms with beautiful red clover flowers in the spring.
It likes well-drained soils and has a dense root system. Purple vetch prefers loam soils and
should be planted before the weather gets too cold. Hairy vetch is the most winter-hardy of the
vetches. It tolerates wetter soils and can be planted with ryegrass.
Fava beans come in two types: horse beans and bell beans. Horse beans can be grown to
maturity and eaten. Bell beans are used strictly for a cover crop. These plants grow three to four
feet tall and it is best to compost the stalks in the spring and turn in the stubble.
Mixed cover cropping with bell beans, vetch and rye is very beneficial for the garden. The
rye produces large amounts of biomass and suppresses weed growth while the bell beans and
vetch add nitrogen to the soil.
As soon as summer crops come out, cover crops can be planted in their place. The sooner
they are planted, the more they can grow before the weather turns cold. Plants grow through the
winter and are tilled into the soil in early April. By enriching your soil through cover-cropping
each winter, your garden will become increasingly fertile, reducing the need for fertilizers and
soil conditioners, and providing you with bountiful harvests every year.