this year i started a crop garden plot, and i wanted to use a cover crop this winter, given the terrible soil i have, the "forage radish" you mention sounds tempting, got any links for more info, and could you use it along with a mix of covercrop seeds such as winter rye and peas?

I tried that forage radish and it's very impressive. Does the job as advertised.

Peter, those are instructive categories. Pest fighter in particular is one that I don't consider as much as should. In truth, I tend to cover crop with whatever is at hand, which is generally old bulk beans and grains from the pantry. This is not always a great idea. For instance, last fall I had a bunch of mildewed rye so I sowed it out in my perennial garden without much thought. I had a bunch of self-sowed red mustard in that garden, but the rye suppressed nearly all the germination of the mustard in springtime. So I let the rye grow on thinking to harvest the grain, but the summer has been too wet and it's all lying on the ground now. So we'll find out how rye does as a self-sowing perennial, itself......

http://www.futureharvestcasa.org/profiles3.html
link shows a pretty good pic of a radish that has drilled into soil deeply.

is the forage radish easily available?could you use it along with a mix of covercrop seeds

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Well, I added on to my bed. I used the no till, pile on newspaper and leaves method last fall. I have clay soil which needed to loosen up.I read that sunflowers have large,deep tap roots. So right now I have 10ft.Sunflowers at the end of my garden.(gorgeous) Also,since I joined GW I've read about cowpeas/beans being good for nitrogen fixation. And that the package brought at the store would spout/grow! Well, gosh I had to try that out. So cowpeas are now growing happily with my sunflowers. It's a neat feeling growing something that was also planted 4000/5000 years ago!
I also read about Indian mustard being good for clay soils, so I planted it right along with my lettuces in the same area. (It also tasted good, wilted it right along with the other leaf lettuces.)

This was mostly an experiment, I've never sown a cover crop before.

Sadly, I'm about ready to cut them down (sunflowers)to transplant my broccoli seedlings.

To get the pest fitting benefits against nematodes, you must turn the plants back into the ground before planting the next crop though,

I have a 30ft roll of marigolds, along the edge of one of my beds. Will it be helpful against nematodes, if I just let the plants decompose on my beds, with a very layer of shredded leaves on top? I am tryin to go no till. Thanks Sudzy

Here's a link for the radish Steve Groff grows,

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/reducedtillage/Forage%20Radish.htm

It is available at P.L.Rohrer's but I don't know what small lot pricing is.

hi, i'm a newbie gardener and have a question about the forage radish (being on clay too). do you plant it and then leave it to rot? does this mean i can't plant in my garden while the radish is growing?

this fall i'm going to plant some crimson clover, but plan on mowing it down after it flowers so i can plant for next summer. would a plant like forage radish allow me to use my garden in this way?

When we first bought our little farm 9 years ago we relied heavily on buckwheat to prepare new ground for following crops. It is a great weed suppressor and soil builder and we turned under two, sometimes three crops in a year. Berry and asparagus crops benefited immensely from it; we've managed to keep ahead of the weeds since then by pulling them up by hand and using sawdust and eelgrass mulches. We also converted a large patch of sandy, gravelly lawn into a bed of lavender and other drought tolerant plants by tilling the lawn, then planting two buckwheat crops in succession for their weed suppressing capability.
We used annual ryegrass in the vegetable garden for a few years but it didn't reliably winter kill, and tilling, then waiting for it to rot, delayed spring planting. So we quit using annual ryegrass. I'd like to get away from the dependence on tilling anyhow.
This year I planted patches of oats, barley and flax behind rows of new blackberry bushes and tomato plants. The idea was to harvest grain to feed the chickens and get straw for the chicken coop, the remainder being winterkilled and serve as mulch. Because of heavy rains, and because (I'm guessing) the oats and barley being feed grain, were not rust tolerant varieties, we now have a fallen-over mess of rusty plants. I'm thinking of harvesting it all as hay for the chickens, if we could get a few days in a row of dry weather.

Is there a problem with feeding chickens rusty grain?

My next great Project is to understand and use legumes to get more nitrogen into the soil.

Here's a quick link to that book. Many hours of good reading.

Here is a link that might be useful: Managing Cover Crops Profitably

Paulns: I'm a big booster for cereal rye and hairy vetch in a 3:1 or 2:1 mixture. Neither is subject to winter-kill in this area (zone 5 and 6). The organic no-till technique that's being tested is a crimper roller on the front end of a tractor and a no-till planter, like a Buffalo planter, on the back end. This crimper roller produces a mulch that stays flat. I see that the "Acres USA", just delivered, has an article on just that. I'm intrigued by the mustards as biofumigants, but I haven't tried that yet. It would be great for potato growers in areas where lots of potatoes are grown (just how close is NS to PEI?) for such fungal stuff as scab and rhizoctania (sp?). Regards, Peter.

Beating down that cereal rye sounds like serious business. I did call the farmers co-op and they have cereal rye but not hairy vetch. And they have red clover but only the inocculant for alfalfa and sweet clover, which they don't have in stock - they're a bit frustrating. Do inocculants have to be perfectly matched or would second-best do?

Also, the local co-op was out of layer mash for the hens so I bought a 55 lb bag of scratch - whole oats, barley and cracked corn. Then later got the pellets, which I prefer. So I'm thinking of planting that scratch as we harvest patches of garden - it should make at least a few inches' growth. $14 for 55 lbs with nitrogen (corn) included seems reasonable for cover crop/fertilizer. And today we're starting to haul horse manure to compost for next year's nitrogen.

A fellow from mainland NS was interviewed on the radio the other day, a veteran organic grower, who talked about the serious problem caused by the fact so few people keep livestock any more - the lack of manure. It was a long interview but he never mentioned the green manure option, I wonder why.

Generally speaking, how does green manure compare with horse manure for nitrogen?

I'll keep the mustard-potato connection in mind, although - would growing mustard invite more cabbage moths?

I am trying to grow chickpeas as cover crop, both to nitrogenate the soil after heavy feeders (corn and brassicas) and for me to eat. Have any of you done that?

I should do a lot more with the pest managements issues. Any recommendations for cover crops that will discourage harlequin beetles, colorado potato beetles, eggplant fly beetles and squash beetles? Not sure if this can be done. We are doing hand extermination now (dropping them in soapy water with hot pepper) but it is not pleasant. Mustard sound like it could work?

Flax is a traditional companion for potatoes. I've always grown a row of flax alongside the potatoes for that reason - and because it is beautiful. But this summer a visitor told me flax repels potato beetle. So maybe that's what's behind that tradition. We've had only one small potato beetle problem here in nine years and they were easily controlled by hand. The next year we found potato beetle larva, also easily controlled - same as you, dropping them into soapy water - and this year, again, none.

Flax? nice! I could use just the flax seeds I grind up for food. I have to correct myself, I googled pictures of beetles and what I have are green stink bugs, not Colorado potato beetles. The others are correct, the worse is the harlequin (Murgantia histrionica). One way I have found is to plant sunflowers as a sacrificial crop if I want to get any brassicas in late spring/summer.

engk916,
The radish is typically planted in fall and has rotted by early spring.
I haven't tried planting clover either with or "on top" of the radish so can't say about that.
There's a window after the radish tops are gone when the soil is uncovered, seems the clover would continue to cover.

thank you alphonse, i'll give it a shot this fall.

does anyone know of a place to order forage radish seeds online? johnnyseeds didn't seem to carry any.