Want to do a review of sorts of my first year using fall cover crops in the garden.
This will be a spaced out thread that covers all the way to planting in its leftover mulch next year.
Will be covering things like ease of doing, weed suppression, ease of planting into its mulch residue next spring, and weed supression of that mulch. Ect.
My garden is a design where about 50% is woodchip walkways and beds are spaced around it where i mixed in sand an mushroom compost for a good soil composition.
goal much like many others is to have a healthy soil minimal weeds and no need to till
Most of the garden beds i cover cropped with diakon radish like so, at about 6-8 weeks of growth now
seed cost is very cheap at garden scale, seed were sprinkled to 3-4" spacing and chopped in with a rake. so was easy to do
the radishes provide a very fast dense canopy as radishes are one of the fastest plants. only one type of weed is competing at all, the one in the right pic with small white/yellow flower, a few per bed reach the canopy, but its easy to pull out those few than have bare soil in which weeds would be every where.
but they form a fat parsnip looking root and are supposed to start winterkilling around 20f. then the canopy should fall to make a mulch layer and the tuber will release nutrients back out for spring plants and soil life.
as a bonus they are food incase your hungry.
2 small patches i did in winter wheat and rye.
grasses are supposed to be good at conditioning soil with many fine roots. but they often require you to kill them if the type dont winterkill at your temps. like mine so well see how that goes once spring arrives. grasses were slightly less good at weeds and had to pull out a bit more
another patch was done in field peas. but got eaten regardless of having a good fence so they seem not viable for me. also things dig up the seeds.
my tobacco plot had a mixture of all 4 but being un-fenced deer eliminated everything that wasnt a grass, and they still eat the grass tops. but still did a decent job of weeds vs bare soil
So, so far im very happy with diakon radish in fences. and it seems like unfenced ill probably do oats next season that will winter kill for me on my tobacco plot if i cant crimp kill the wheat and rye easily
next update when something winterkills
This will be a spaced out thread that covers all the way to planting in its leftover mulch next year.
Will be covering things like ease of doing, weed suppression, ease of planting into its mulch residue next spring, and weed supression of that mulch. Ect.
My garden is a design where about 50% is woodchip walkways and beds are spaced around it where i mixed in sand an mushroom compost for a good soil composition.
goal much like many others is to have a healthy soil minimal weeds and no need to till
Most of the garden beds i cover cropped with diakon radish like so, at about 6-8 weeks of growth now
seed cost is very cheap at garden scale, seed were sprinkled to 3-4" spacing and chopped in with a rake. so was easy to do
the radishes provide a very fast dense canopy as radishes are one of the fastest plants. only one type of weed is competing at all, the one in the right pic with small white/yellow flower, a few per bed reach the canopy, but its easy to pull out those few than have bare soil in which weeds would be every where.
but they form a fat parsnip looking root and are supposed to start winterkilling around 20f. then the canopy should fall to make a mulch layer and the tuber will release nutrients back out for spring plants and soil life.
as a bonus they are food incase your hungry.
2 small patches i did in winter wheat and rye.
grasses are supposed to be good at conditioning soil with many fine roots. but they often require you to kill them if the type dont winterkill at your temps. like mine so well see how that goes once spring arrives. grasses were slightly less good at weeds and had to pull out a bit more
another patch was done in field peas. but got eaten regardless of having a good fence so they seem not viable for me. also things dig up the seeds.
my tobacco plot had a mixture of all 4 but being un-fenced deer eliminated everything that wasnt a grass, and they still eat the grass tops. but still did a decent job of weeds vs bare soil
So, so far im very happy with diakon radish in fences. and it seems like unfenced ill probably do oats next season that will winter kill for me on my tobacco plot if i cant crimp kill the wheat and rye easily
next update when something winterkills
