A friend from church asked me, “Is there any cover crop to plant in the spring?”
Traditionally, most home gardeners only plant cover crops in the fall. Spring plantings of cover crops will help improve the yields of selected vegetables.
Lettuce and corn require a lot of nitrogen during their growing seasons. Fertilizer applied to the soil gives your plants what they need. Rain will wash out a portion of the nitrogen that you so diligently applied over time.
If you were to plant a feeder crop in the spring to help hold the nitrogen in place and reduce leaching, you would be further ahead. Cowpeas, Hairy Vetch, Red Clover, and Egyptian Clover are spring plantings that will increase nitrogen in the soil.
Spring cover crops can also help prevent erosion. Cover crops are planted to encourage valuable soil organisms like worms. Healthy soil will increase the soil’s friability and improve drainage.
Having cover crops in your garden increases your chances of getting out into the garden in early spring.
If you started in the fall with a good winter rye over your garden, you should be watching for the seed heads getting ready and preparing to knock the rye down soon.
One of the reasons for covering crops is to prevent early weeds from popping up before you get a chance to plant.
Once you have removed your early crops like peas, radishes, collards, spinach, and onions, it’s a good thing to cover the vacated area with cover crops for future crops.
One of the unusual qualities of certain cover crops such as oats, rye, barley, buckwheat, and Sorghum-Sudangrass is that they are all considered allelopathic to some degree. If you time these crops properly, they will suppress weed seeds from flying in on the wind without the chance to germinate.
Properly timing these cover crops as to when to plant will be the most efficient approach to getting your garden to be weed-free.
If you have had problems with different root diseases or nematodes, planting brassicas like mustard or radish reduces some of these root problems. Because of root-knot nematodes, the scientific name of Meloidogyne chitwoodi, that attack potatoes in the Northwest US, studies are being done.
Rapeseed, arugula, and mustard were studied as alternatives to soil fumigation. An initial planting of rapeseed as the cover crop was planted in late summer and tilled under in the spring before planting mustard in rotation.
The application of mustard reduced the nematode by 80 %. One fascinating characteristic is that certain brassicas also host parasitic nematodes and can be used as trap crops. (A trap crop is planted to deter pests.)
Studies reveal that cover crops hold new promises to help those using them. Tomatoes planted in a dead mulch of hairy vetch had higher yields, lived longer, and had fewer foliar diseases than tomatoes in black poly mulch.
The effect was not simply the result of the nitrogen provided by the hairy vetch. A dead mulch of hairy vetch reduced rates of Fusarium wilt by 26%.
Rapeseed, wheat, and rye suppressed root rot in beans. Brassicas suppressed Sclerotina or white mold in lettuce and Verticillium wilt in cauliflower.
One of my friends sees the value of keeping the soil covered and helping the native soil shredders thrive.
Bees need a little extra help this time of year to get into our gardens earlier and are trained to look for our crops like tomatoes and peppers when they come into bloom.
If you wish to help pollinators this spring, you can plant Hairy Vetch, Buckwheat, and most clovers.
You won’t find cover crops in traditional thought for gardens, but we live in a new era. We are trying to be more frugal and healthier. New solutions should be addressed for this new age.
I hope you have a great stroll through your garden as you install your new garden. If you have any challenges, send me an email at ericlarson546@yahoo.com.