No-Till Cover Crop Termination for Small Scale Agriculture
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 15. 07. 2024
- Terminating cover crops on a large scale with tillage or with chemicals is pretty well fleshed out, but what about in a complex small scale no-till system? How exactly do you kill cover crops?
Today we cover: how to kill rye and vetch cover crops, how to kill grain crops, crimping cover crops, trapping cover crops, cover crops as a mulch, green manures and more.
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Oops, just realized I sound like I call Buckwheat a legume in this video. Buckwheat is not a legume, but it is easy to kill. It's in the Polygonaceae family along with smartweed and dock and others which makes sense because all can easily become obnoxious weeds if allowed to go to seed. Also related to rhubarb though which is delicious. Yup
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Hey Jesse, any idea how much of an impact tarping to kill the cover has on the microbes?
Curious how quickly they would die back especially mycorrhiza. I always hear Jones and others say living root but I wonder how long we have in between crops in the ground before we lose some benefits.
My best luck (least effort) is to plant oats and daikon type radishes in the early fall, they winter kill when there's a hard freeze. The oats fall over and cover the soil, the radishes feed worms all winter and there's usually not a trace of them by the time it's warm in spring. Most other cover crops like vetch and buckwheat, especially clover, are horrible about coming back as weeds for years.
We use oats and radish as well. Didnât have to use round up in the fall or spring. Saving money and always great to minimize our herbicide use.
I think radish is great a storing nitrogen in the root so it doesnât move away over the winter.
Nice idea, Over here in the tropics of Peru we use peanuts to fix nitrogen into soil and mix in some quinoa and Chia before planting our crops
Wait isn't buckwheat killed by frost?
@@Shanngella It doesn't bloom all at once then set obvious seeds, so if any seeds fall to the ground, they sprout whenever - that year, the next year, the following year... They're easy to pull up but the amount needing pulling can become overwhelming.
Buckwheat seems to be immortal.
This year I dropped the deck on my zero turn all the way down and tied a cattle panel behind it and made several passes without the blades engaged to basically clobber the cover crop and seemed to have good results.
I love your videos! I profit from the knowledge and inspiration you share every single video!
I have found that pallets are handy to throw onto plastic sheeting to help weigh it down enough for most windy-ness ( if u also have cement blocks, heavy rocks, etc. every so often). They're awkward to carry far of course, but otherwise most one collects tend to be pretty light and manageable sized, and I just had them come in really handy once for tarping, and thought I'd share for others who haven't done it much and need ideas :).
This past summer, I stomped down a portion of my garden with a board that I screwed a metal plate to for crimping, and then went over the laid down mulch with a weed burner and it browned in a few days. I didn't burn the weeds. Just heated them to the point they browned on their own. Some came back a couple months later because I didn't plant into it, but I just hit it again with the burner.
This is my 5th video..n im hooked. Modern agriculture..love the science..
Enjoyed the video, answered a few questions I had. First year doing cover crops, so I'm taking what I have learned and seeing what works for me. Copious notes will be taken.
Great video ! To simplify it why not get the weed hacker out cut it all down to couple inches and mow it without the bucket to chop up the bigger bits. Clear up the path ways add bunch of compost to the beds and then cover it with tarp until that last frost date arrives? Love getting nerdy with this stuff but surely thatâs a more accessible and more efficient option to the average market gardener? Unless Iâm missing something
You have a really good attitude and a very realistic message that our new age "No-Till Nazis" are not so candid about. People who actually get in the field and do this stuff for real (like yourself) see the challenges and are part of the much needed learning process to make this type of farming more practical and eventually more common place. Thank you.
I wish more Farmers here in the United States would rely on no till farming you would have to rely a lot less on herbicides and fertilizers over time it's also so much better for the soil.
the one question i have is how do you do it on a commercial scale
@@clipntn1092 Look into Gabe Brown with Brownâs Farm in North Dakota.
agreed, however, most larger no-till operations use herbicides extensively, unfortunately.
Exactly the boots-on-the-ground info Iâve been looking for. THANK YOU!
Great video Jesse. Rye seems like a tough one. I'm playing it safe with White Clover. Although I do like Johnny's Fall Mix - winter rye, field peas, ryegrass, crimson clover, and hairy vetch.
Love the rain noise!
Great video! Here in Canada, I have been finding that Clover is being commonly used as the cover-crop for two reasons: first because it is nitrogen fixing; second, because the plant is small by comparison to rye (or tall) grain, therefore it breaks down fast under the tarps. I have a lot to learn on this topic, but this is just preliminary investigation found thus far. Great video!!
I like to use clover on my 50 gallon beds for my indoor winter growing
Yes, I'm doing New Zealand White Clover and another area with Hairy vetch, both inoculant Seeded
Wow very nice experiments !!
One way of terminating weeds/cover crop i successfully tryed is to use a a weedwaker inclinated around 45° to destroy the crop at the colley. (you need good protections doh, because of soil projections, and sometimes stones..)
Thanks a lot for sharing !!
Thanks! Been looking for this for so long
Iâve had good success scythe mowing rye and vetch at milk/dough stage, temporarily raking the tops off, compost mulching, then even raking the rye straw back on to act as mulch after transplanting crops like eggplant, squash, or cukes. They seem to appreciate the lower soil temperatures that the lighter colored rye creates when first transplanted.
Scything has become my favorite way of doing this and I have gotten pretty quick with it. You can cut the rye so that half an inch of the plant is left above ground and it reliably dies within 5 days if itâs sunny. Quiet, quick, reliable.
This year Iâm gonna experiment with keeping the straw on and just separating the layers of compost and rye just where we transplant.
Iâm also curious what folks do with say straw mulch when theyâre done covering beds. Sometimes we have too much to simply rake into pathways without making it awkward to walk/wheelbarrow in them.
Wow! I really learned a lot! Thank you, Farmer Jesse!
Amazing episode
In the UK I use Winter Tares over-winter and a great Nitrogen fixer. Very soft growth so after 3 weeks under tarp there is virtually nothing left. Sow September, smother in February without crushing and follow on with Brassicas without any other inputs.
There is some anecdotal info that hairy vetch much impoves the flavor of tomatoes. I am thinking of starting a new tomato bed treated with a covercrop heavy on hairy vetch to test this. Have you experienced this flavor improvement with tomatoes?
The power of the wind as harnessed by a huge tarp is not to be underestimated. I had one held down with large wooden fenceposts laid all over it, and the wind still got in under one edge and ended up throwing the posts all over the place, with the tarp left flapping around with only one corner still held down.
Excellent,Thank you
In your area I am sure you have plenty of leaves available. Have you tried using them a cover instead of hay or straw as a supplement for weed suppression? In the spring I cover my garden with leaves and them mow and stir the leaves repeatedly to break the leaves down. I then place an additional 3-6 inches of leaves on top of that. The tomato plants are then planted. My weed control has been great and the tomatoes have done real well.
Thank you, thank you
I would say, you have to be careful with hay, cow or horse manure. If the hay has been sprayed with herbicide, or manure comes from cattle who ate hay that's been sprayed with herbicide this may carry into the soil and cause issues.
Canât find info on braided cover crops - another new idea I have never heard of- why are you so cool! Lol
Hi Jessie, Iâm a regenerative farmer. Big fan of cover crops to protect soil especially after animals have eaten their winter brassica crop Swedes, kale, rape crops etc. (temperate Climate). We use winter oats due to its great up take of nitrate. I also feed cattle zeolite to clean their gut and this holds nitrate really well in soil. I use a frail mower to drop the crop at milky stage, run animals over it which aids in driving it into soil and bruises the stems which helps in break-down. Trick is to get a âcropâ in as fast as possible to suppress weeds. I use plant derived fatty acids as an organic weed killer IF thereâs a particular nasty juvenile weed coming up. Itâs contact only best applied on a hot sunny day during active growth. Probably good in Kentucky??
Hi L&S, could you give me more explanation on the plant derived fatty acid herbicide ?
Please
You mix plants (and cup of water) with a blender and get the upper layer of fat ?
Thx
Awesome video! I'm about to terminate my buckwheat cover crop in preparation for planting my sweet corn đœ
I stomped winter rye cover down with angle iron and then used a hand post-hole digger shovel to chop nice round holes into the flat rye and then transplanted into these punch-outs just like gardeners plant into holes made in that black plastic weed barrier. Worked out well.
What about using a water drum to stomp the cover crops? We used to use a 55 gallon barrel and put some water. About 15-20 gallons of water and roll the drum over the cover crop. We made it kind of a weird game and take turns and work in teams. We were always trying to see who was the strongest and most coordinated. It was always hilarious. It was cheap fun đ
Did it work to kill the cover crop? Also would paint particles left on the crop become an issue later on?
Last year i had suprising success letting cilantro and arugula stay in the beds and flower. Because flower stalks are so much more fibrous they actually stick around and create a great mulch. I terminated them either 1) waiting for a frost here in Maine or 2) i put on snowshoes and just walked over it sideways right at milk stage. This is great because you dont need to buy separate seed and you also dont need to plan out a whole separate crop for the bed. You can just neglect some beds and they naturally will flower and they do the planning for you. In the spring we were able to just rake it all aside very easily. Iâll be trialing these much more this fall
I always though both of those in my fall mixes when I have extra seed! Cilantro is surprisingly winter hardy here in KY
What do you do when you take it aside? Like are you then making room to direct seed, or is it still too much stuff in the way so you have to do transplants? If you rake it aside, do you leave in there or bring it to a compost or sometning to re apply later?
Good video! I'm going to start a big new garden this fall by running a sub-soiler as deep as I can (my current soil is _very_ compacted clay), tilling in as much compost as I can get, and then planting a cover crop. I'd start now, but it's still too hot now and it probably won't rain until October. So for now I'm just working on compost.
I think I'm going to try a variant of your "clobbering" method to kill the cover crop. I don't have a mower, but I do have a rotary tiller for my baby tractor. If I drag the tiller over my garden with the PTO running but with the 3-point hitch set so the tines are just above the ground, maybe it will clobber the cover crop without disturbing the soil too much. I think it's worth a try, especially since my soil is currently so bad that it probably wouldn't be a disaster if I just tilled in the cover crops for the first couple years. The cover crop might just wrap itself around my tiller if I do it this way, but I won't know until I try.
I've read that Animal grazing is possibly the most ideal cover crop termination method.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiance.
Thanks, Jesse for an in-depth presentation.
The one thing that tests my patience is keeping the tarps down. Watching from Ireland again and again. It must be extra windy here.
I đ this channel! rapid fire info and a loveable protagonist âsuch a great resource
I have a very small community garden plot, partially planted with asparagus and strawberries. It's the end of September. I'll grow some lettuce and then plant maybe winter rye and then cut it down and cover it with cardboard or newspaper and compost and mulch and plant through that.
Cardboard, lots and lots of cardboard spread across the area to be planted (cut grass/weeds beforehand) lay cardboard, cover area in grass clippings, mulch or compost make holes ONLY where you wish to plant, plant keep mulch, compost slightly away from plant and leave the rest to nature. Little weeding little watering. (NOTE) the earlier you lay the cardboard the more moist the soil will be, reducing the amount of watering later. Happy Gardening.
I love the BCS flail mower plus the PDS on the tiller to give the soil a very close buzz similar to your power harrow idea. The flail mower really chops the cover crop into tiny bits that incorporate well and break down fast. The PDS on the tiller allows for great depth control with the tines.
Same thing I do except I have the Earth Tools version of the depth control. One improvement Id like to make for next year is actually moderating the amount of above ground biomass; was just too much. Id like to choose species that make more root mass
I have a 30" roller-crimper from Earth tools for the BCS.
Yes i also wish you could share the rain. Toasted lanscape in may here... ;)
thank you for this much needed information, in a world where the food supply chain is threatened, we need all the help we can get.
Your weather seems like a warmer version of ours I. Th South of the uk
Cowpeas and millet work great here in the sub tropics of australia. They are both easy to kill but the cowpeas get pretty woody and dense. I attack cowpeas with a brush cutter first (slowly so the snakes and frogs have a chance to evacuate), rake into the walkway and, well the next part is where i get stuck. I used to use a small 2 stroke cultivator but now wanting to try a less invasive approach.
I dont have broadfork yet but im thinking, aerate a little with a pitchfork, a light going over with the stirrup hoe, whilst dodging the cowpea stumps.
Then, throw the cowpeas back onto the bed, wait a week and plant. Fingers crossed!
Recently discovered your channel, it's great so far! Would it make sense to roll your tarps around an old power pole (or similar) and just roll the tarp/pole out over the cover crop (think unrolling a carpet), thus laying the crop over, and also applying the tarps? Or would that risk too much compaction? Just a thought from a newbie!
I am now awesome. Thanks only took me 49 years!
Iâm in IL. Real IL, not the armpit in the ne corner. Far away from it in the rolling hills of western IL. Farming practices are still centered around dead hot exposed soil with loads of chemicals for many.
Iâve been doing cover crops and I am seeing them become more acceptable and implemented on small scale but they are catching on. Itâs definitely showed in rye costs as a bag has gone up considerably.
I enjoy your thinking, thank you for sharing and your hard work NTG
If you want to tarp for a few weeks and need big sheets of tough tarping, try lumber wraps. We've found that some lumber yards will let you have their old lumber wraps for free!
A faster option you didn't mention (for when you can't afford to wait 3 weeks) is to crimp/mow the cover, than tarp it with landscape fabric and immediatey transplant trough it. There's the occasional rye that manages to creep into the hole but it's quite easy to remove them by hand. Not very practical tho when the mulch layer is very thick, it'll make opening a passage quite hard on your fingers
Yeah, that's an option (depending on what you're planting obviously). Good addition, thanks
Another great video as usual. I am about to give up -- don't have the land to grow my own yet, and can't find any hay or straw that is not sprayed. Another thing that I can't find any info on is if I were to grow my own hay or straw, what would be the best plants to use? Hay is for animal feed and straw is a byproduct of grain production. What if the goal was for garden mulch, how might that change?
Great video as ever. Clover is a nightmare. I mow. I tarp for 6 months and it still needs to be handwheeded has it just won't die! Haven't done buck wheat but worth a try.
Is it causing problems for your crops? I have lots of it growing in between or under crops and it's been no problem. I usually just trim it down a couple days after it flowers.
@@cmwh1te well basically it takes nutrients that are for veg and I want to kill it in place so they are returned. If it doesn't do that it's locking up minerals unnecessarily. Plus for early planting it can shade out seedlings such as parsnip and carrot.
Wait what kind of clover? Yellow clovers can be like that. White and red are more manageable.
I had chamomile come up volunteer last spring. I almost pulled it out, then I took a closer look and left it in place.
I'm looking for an easy cover crop, one for one old lady to chop or knock down by herself and that helps clay soil
Thank you!
I am also one old lady with a small garden. I'm not taking anything with me to the pearly gates, hence no new tools allowed here. I have a small back garden 20' x 30', with a few narrow auxiliary beds. I only have time, muscle power and usual hand tools. What can I use as a cover crop that will not leave me with an weedy mess? I do not use chemicals. I bought Daikon seed so far.I eat Arugula and remainder kale through the winter then cut it down. I use leaves from the neighborhood. Am forced to be very careful about attracting creatures. I bury pure veggie compost deeply to ripen because of rats. Above ground compost pile for pure leaves, clippings and small branches. I have plenty of worms. I hand pick slugs and recycle them from hiding places. It takes years to process veggie compost in the dirt but it means I can keep rats away.. I use a security camera on my garden and know who I share my garden with. I see dozens of squirrels, multiple raccoons, 2 skunks, opossums, one fat recurring rabbit, foxes x3 , sometimes a groundhog, My garden sentinel is a lovely red tail hawk who perches over the garden almost daily. The hawk never caught the cardinal family who nested deep and securely inside my cattle panel armature that I built into make a magical bean house for grandchildren. This is a garden in an urban setting. I rotate and have okay yields.
Thanks for advice from the Niagara Region in Canada. Crappy soil that has improved over 30+ years. Lots to learn.
Great Information and detailed, I'm seriously looking at doing this on some ground I cleared that had lots of old dead or dying river cottonwood trees and weeds. My wife decided to do large Grandma's pumpkin patch, it was very successful , as the pumpkin plants started to die out and after harvesting the pumpkins, I'm left with lots of vines some molded one's also my question is are the vines good to put back into the soil or scrape them off, any suggestions are welcomed cause I can't find any information on prepping after the harvest.
braided landscape -> whaaaaaaat!
One experiment i started with some success but havent the time yet to continue (too much project a the same time ^^..) is to do plenty of modular small "swimming pools" made from advertisement tarps, fill them with water (or leaving the rain to do the job) so it smashes very well what is under. You can valorise the pool's sun exposure for duckweed/azolla/baby plants under igloo greenhouse, so in place of having the soil not capturing the sun energy, and plastic beeing damaged by it, you can harvest it as algae mulch, fertilised water, or simply rain catchment. And doing kind of a "caterpillar" rotation, by transfering the "filler" to the next one, and on and on...
How do you support the sides of your pools?
@@minkademko2335 Small poles, or igloo structure..
@Nooneinparticular987 Hehe..! Funnily you interpreted differently what i meaned and found new idea with it ^^
I was meaning that the small pools had also bottoms, (so itdoesn't matters if the soil "drinks" too much..) and when you fill it with something it helps much easyer to smother and decompose what is under under the weight, while valorising "the weight" under the sun exposure.. : )
Great video. I am looking forward to reading your book
You will not be disappointed! Money well spent.
Ho yes getting rid of them on our scale 300ah without chemicals in a wet warm ish climate love the power harow idea we should be able to sacle that method up to our needs
Have you played with rye strains and crimping times? I picked Yankee rye because it was suppose to be easy to crimp kill, but i wait until the dough stage to crimp. I going to try and roll early in the milk stage and compare. I might even try to harvest some grain, would be nice to have "free" seed.
Im in agreeance with what you said about the second trial. I scythed a small scale 30'X30' winter wheat/rye/radish/peas/mustard/turnip bed cover this winter and then mulched over along with leaf compost and worm compost. I had a good bit of rye and wheat trying to come back and im still fighting it. been going back tih the weed torch but im not going to be able to keep doing that. extremely actively with worms and soldier flies ive noticed tho
A propane flame bar works wonders....but watch your weather before use....!
My husband and I are closing on our land next month, my first big project is fall/over winter cover crop. Our soil is pretty clay heavy so I'm aiming to build soil as quickly as possible. Looking forward to tending our land and building soil.
With all that clay, build yourself a cob house!!
Do recommend broadforking before transplanting? (minute 3.08 in the video) I mean in the crimping and tarping method. Or do you just make a hole for transplanting the tomatoes? thank you, very helpful video!
See ya learn something new everyday.. I didnât realize disturbing the root zone was a bad thing.. I guess Iâm behind times lol. But we still do all our gardening and produce the conventional tillage method and in between crops use cover crops but Iâll mow them down and till then in. Iâm extremely interested in these low/no till methods though!
The key realization for me has been that soil isn't just food for roots, roots are food for the soil ecosystem. Some parts of that ecosystem are delicate and tillage is very disruptive to them. For me no-till became obvious once I learned that good soil isn't just about chemistry.
Jesse, I have purchased your living soils handbook and I have been guarding/farming a 3/4acre area for 15 years, that being said I have experimented with some cover crops in sandy loom soil also amended with composted horse manure approx 20 tons. attempted to improve soil density. What are your thoughts on that?
Makita (or similar maker) grass cutter with the sweeping motion handle type is probably the easiest for smaller scale, and is designed for 1 person. 1 person can get quite a bit done. Very low scatter, and with enough experience the operator can finely control the depth of cut, making cuts right at surface level, or slightly above, to preserve young clovers while getting the longer grasses (as is common in my use case).
Using the 18V version but there are dual 18v (36v) if you have larger area to cover. I find that running at medium speed for crimson clover allows for clog free cutting while having a good operating time on the battery. There are multiple models out there. Just be aware that the 36v is a bit heavy.
I do have one question, Jesse. As to tilling between beds to add that soil TO the beds. I have had that thought since we are finally going to go no till 100% and it would cut down on the amount of organics we have to bring in. My concern is simply removing that topsoil from the pathways which we're planning to make living pathways.
I suppose grasses/clovers will still grow on it and begin to rebuild that soil? Sandy/loam/clay mixture so it's not completely useless but tends to compact some.
I am organic gardening channel from NJ uses a hedge trimmer attached to a rake to terminate his winter rye cover crop. I thought that was cool.
Great information
Much of the farms in America has lost topsoil down to 3 to 6 inches. I believe it should be more like 16 inches. So build up over a few seasons will be needed.
have you also tried with field peas, oats, and radishes? you mentioned it's easy, but I would like to see it before trying it myself :)
How do you mark the edges of your permanent raised beds to maintain bed/path lines?
In my teeny allotment I use a serrated breadknife to cut the cover crops at just below soil level - so I did wonder if a turf-cutter would do the job larger-scale, set to its highest setting.
Wow, could be !!!
I have an extra bread knife and what a wonderful idea to distress. I especially like to this or do some serious weeding when Iâm upset about something. It helps me to get rid of the extra adrenaline. I call it garden therapy. đ
I never thought of just stomping the weeds down instead of pulling them. I usually just cut them, leaving the roots.
Iâm lucky(?) enough to be in a situation where I have some long windows in between crop rotations. I currently have a block seeded to fall rye/pea/vetch (was winter squash) and itâs slated for garlic planting next fall. So wondering if itâs possible to delay boot/seed stage of cover crop via light mowing when young so I donât have to try to establish a following summer cover crop (buckwheat?) in the hot, dry season. Iâm in Pacific Northwest rainshadow, with NO rain all summer, and irrigation is from a sensitive well.
Hey Jesse, thank you for this video and the whole cover-crop-series, it's inspiring. Which Covercrop(mix) would you suggest using if i wanted to use a field for grazing animals (mostly chicken and sheep/goats) for 1-3 years before using the area for vegetable growing? Greetings from Germany
Rye is a good option that some animals like to eat, clover too... But I would set aside some small area for those, and make the rest a mix of pasture seed (dust from harvested dry hay from a local farmer). And this way the animals would have a diverse pasture. They will enrich the area a lot through the years either way - we have been grazing in some grassfields for about 10 years now with cows, and if I would now turn that area into a garden, the vegetables would probably grow easily, because that soil is really rich.
When I cut my sorghum Sudan Dan grass and I then try to kill it into the soil, it wraps around the tones of the tiller. Will it still be beneficial if I cut the sorghum sedan grass do not till it, but then cover it with a tarp will the grass still give nutrients to the soil without it being tilled in.
Would brush hogging the cover crop before tarping be just as effective? Thanks for your channel!
Six months late to the video, and still awesome, (because I like it). =~)
@No-Till Growers maybe you mentioned it and I didn't quite get it as I'm not very familiar with the English terms of certain agricultural practices & tools but how do you do when raking off the remaining biomass in order to not pull out the dead plants together with the roots? E.g. with rye I had this problem when I tried to get a clear bed for sowing winter cover crops after solarisation of the summer mixture that was growing in a fallow bed
I use a scythe for all mowing.
We use our goats to terminate cover crops. They eat all but the roots and leave their great manure in return. Just need a portable fencing area and a good water supply for them.
Are your row covers braided for storage? Iâve never seen that!
THANK YOU!!!
i use all wood chips from trees only nu brush , and wait 3 yeras till underr and then mixx with new dump of chips with pre emulsified soil / black soil from same garden mixed back in as you rake under mixt in all directions then flatened back out left to settle over 3 weeks then planted with rows with certain rows started purposely at different timings for even groth across canvas of approx 1/3 acre where at end of season the grarss has about taken back the entire garden as i left it take on the naturalprocess of groth periods , i plant 3 years , i leave untouched 3 years
I quit using stop board method on winter rye due to lousy crimp ability. It now occurs to me that affixing 2 rows of angle iron to the bottom of the board might give a good crimp edge/pressure point to damage the stalk so it terminates. Duh... Might make it harder to drag the board.
I'm new to this idea and wonder (similar to a previous comment) if it would be beneficial to treat the cover crop area like you would a new no-till bed - covering it with cardboard or paper and laying on compost in which to plant.
I second the question
Would a subcompact tractor with brush hog rotary cutter be a reasonable solution for cutting down cover crop without causing excessive compaction? Distance between rear wheels is only 24â, too narrow to try to keep beds out of tire paths. Tractor, loader, brush hog and me weight would be about 2750lbs.
I wonder how a sharp scythe would work.
Great overview, Jessie. Thank you. Question: is it ever appropriate or beneficial at any scale to simply chop and drop, and continue cutting back your cover crop throughout the season while letting your crop grow? Basically, co-planting with cover crops in a garden letâs say and just keeping the above ground vegetation for the cover managed while your preferred species grow up to be harvested? Thanks! Love the channel!
David the good has a few videos of his trials on exactly this and the result was like picking the soup of the day but it gave him plenty of life to cover his sandy soil. im gonna be trialing this myself here in NC red clay
So mowing cover crops is great for soil in the same way grazing is great for pastures. Planting into a growing crop, however, I definitely don't recommend. I have done several "perennial cover crop" and living mulch trials and they have not been great. Our veggie crops are not bred for that level of competition, I fear. Living pathways was my answer to that.
I like to cut weeds and cover crops, chop and drop I guess, as you suggest, above the soil line. It works great in my kitchen garden. My vegetables seem to love that something is growing with them, if only some roots.
I till right be for planting for the sol fact that all winter long I am adding wood ash and chicken / horse manure to my garden beds. How would I be able to add this to my garden beds with out composting it or tilling it ?
Where can I find the two whell tractor and attachments. I can only find expensive ones and for that I can just get a used 30-40horse tractor and loader.
any advice for thistle ? i have a mid size tractor and a woods tiller ...... too heavy, ----soil compaction? or a string trimmer on a mower , was hoping to feed the chickens the grain
I'm wonder what can be used as an accelerent once the cover crop has been dropped. Some compost recipes suggest plant pulp, eg comfrey, fruit pulp etc, does releasing a population of microbes that have been eating a particular cover crop spped up decomposition under the tarp?
I wonder whether mowing after the power harrow would help any, great surface area?
I do not have any experience with doing this yet, but I just read JADAM Organic Farming (second edition) and there are recipies where you use leaf mold to prepare a JADAM microbial solution. It seems it may help with accelerating.
Hello there. I do not have additional helpers and I do not have large farm equipment. What do your think about using a scythe to cut down the cover crop and just leaving in place? Chop and Drop? I am planning to expand my space to include another area and will be killing off the weeds and then planting a cover crop of a mixture of peas, buckwheat, daikon radish and oats. These are the seeds I have in abundance, so those are my choices. I hope to start growing them late September and kill off for the winter for the spring growing season. Thanks.
Grow a Sustainable Diet by Cindy Connor covers home garden scale cover crops using only hand tools, so I think itâs totally possible.
Other way i plan to experiment "one day" is : A big solar concentrator like curved mirror or fresnel lens (you can find them for free in old big tv) like you can see in the "greenpowerscience" channel, or, more sphisticated but i guess more effective in big scale, a mobile solar boiler connected to a steam weeder..
Whoa! That sounds different!
Maybe look into a roller crimper, or a friend who has one, and can roll crimp the cover crop for you.
What about a tractor with a grader lowered all the way down? What about running cattle on it when it is really tall, then going from there?
For small gardens, I planted daikon radish as a cover crop, and they are just not flowering (but are only about 8-12" tall max). Can I just use a weed-eater and chop it down to the ground level that way? And then should I just let it lay on the surface, or should I cover it with black plastic for 2 weeks after it is knocked down to the earth? Also I have top soil being brought in for parts of the garden to build up mounds. Should I avoid putting any top soil on top of the chopped down daikon radish? Thank you!