Dumb question about cover crops

Good discussion. I have a first year garden and I have WEEDS. over my head weeds, if allowed to grow. I am behind on pulling them, got to get back to work. Don't want to till under, that would only break the roots and stems into pieces and every piece would grow another WEED. My cover crop is cardboard. LOL

What an amazing place to come to if you have dumb questions! Thank you all for responding. It makes sense now. I have never tried it but will start looking into some cover crops for this fall / winter.

Another related question: When you take out the cover crop to plant your vegetables, don't you want to take them out early enough, like several weeks before, so the root will have time to rot and not compete with the new vegie plants that you just put in? One year a garden bed did not do well and I thought it was because the root system that bed was still too green from previous year's crop that I cut off too late.

Thanks again for all the help!

A couple weeks should do it. If left fallow too long, the beneficial bacteria / fungus begins to die out with no plant roots to interact with. There is a very good magazine, Acres USA, look up on internet, read the archived articles. You might want to subscribe, tons of excellent information there. In our area, northeast Texas, oats, wheat, buckwheat, etc will grow in winter and make good cover crops.

We are so glad you joined us, please continue to visit with us. We would be delighted to hear more about your garden and hear your responses to our posts.

baymule said:

Good discussion. I have a first year garden and I have WEEDS. over my head weeds, if allowed to grow. I am behind on pulling them, got to get back to work. Don't want to till under, that would only break the roots and stems into pieces and every piece would grow another WEED. My cover crop is cardboard. LOL

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I hesitate to do much watering with our drought here so I'm pretty much stuck with the native weeds that will get by on just some night time dew and an occasional fog. If this drought ever breaks I'll have my work cut out for me getting ahead of the weeds.

hoodat said:

I hesitate to do much watering with our drought here so I'm pretty much stuck with the native weeds that will get by on just some night time dew and an occasional fog. If this drought ever breaks I'll have my work cut out for me getting ahead of the weeds.

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You know that you CAN kill, maime, and destroy any mopnstrous weed in sight before they set seeds when there is a drought in your neighborhood . Your rabbits will enjoy the fare , uou get much needed excercise , and you will save your aching back when the rains will come. Win, win !!!

I've done a little planting of winter rye as a cover crop and tried some brassicas last year and previous. I'll call them brassicas so as to make it sound more scientific .

Collecting seed from this and that has proven to be fairly easy. What to do with some extra mustard seed, sow it late and let it winter-kill. Tried that with radish last year, planted amongst the corn. I'm not sure if the mustard would have died with our mild winter but the radish did.

I've wanted to try oats as a late-sown crop. It should winter-kill. I don't know how much organic matter it would add, however. Winter rye adds a lot if I can get it sown early enough. Sown late, it was a PITA! Plants that grow enuf are easily killed in the spring by pulling. Small rye plants keep coming back after tilling - takes about 3 times.

Austrian winter peas died overwinter at about a 90% rate, the one time I tried them. I was disappointed until I realized that the seed wasn't terribly expensive and added nutrients probably much better than most organic fertilizers. I don't know how they would do if above-zero winters are what we can expect now.

Steve

I worked pulling monster weeds this morning. Then I applied my "cover" crop--6 paper feed sacks, opened up and weighted down with bricks. LOL LOL