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Organic Gardening

Dwarf white clover. Do I need to wait (just planted garden)

15 years ago

Just planted my fall/winter garden.

Want to plant my first cover crop.

Intend to plant dwarf white clover in the aisles and areas around plants (primarily brassicas) to serve as a living mulch.

Problem is, I don't know when to plant.

I have a couple books by Elliot Coleman, that I've gone through to try and find an answer, but there doesn't seem to be one. In one of his crop rotation/cover crop schedules he shows that while the crop/cover crops are staggered, that they do indeed overlap (of course they do... green manure).

However, it doesn't give a time frame that would be suggested to wait between the time the seed is sown or the transplant is planted until the cover crop is sown.

Can anyone give me some idea as to how long I need to wait (if in fact I need to wait at all?) Ideally, I wouldn't need to wait because then I can start getting some green material on the soil; Thinking I might be able to forgo some other sort of mulch.

But then again, maybe I do need to put down some other sort of mulch in the meantime before I plant the cover crop.

In that regard, would there be some way to put down a mulch that I could also rake the cover crop seed into and maybe cover with more of the same, thus saving the step of having to remove the mulch prior to planting the cover crop seed?

Would compost (not that I have any yet) be appropriate for this (next season)? How about ground leaves (again, next season)?

Ideally the answer would be aged pine bark fines (I have a lot of them and a ready source), but it has been mentioned they are hydrophobic and that water could potentially move them around (off the plot)... so now I'm kind of leaning away from it.

Any ideas?

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Comments (3)

Kimmsr
15 years ago
You can mulch, or you can plant a cover crop, but there is no need to do both. What you want to do is protect the soil from the ravages of the sun, wind, and rain and one, or the other, will do that. You can seed your cover crop anytime now, or you can mulch anytime now.
emyers
Original Author
15 years ago
kimmser-
So, you don't think there will be any competition problems between the white clover and the other plants/seeds I've planted? Any idea why in the charts in the books I referenced, it appears that he waits a month plus before planting the cover crop?

FWIW, I wasn't planning on doing both (cover crop and mulch) UNLESS, I needed to wait to plant the cover crop.

Thanks.
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Soils should not be left exposed to the ravages of the sun, wind, and rain any longer then necessary. Often, the concept of waiting to seed a second crop in the same field as another was done to give the other crop time to germinate and grow some so you could see where to plant the other seed, no other reason. In your garden, unless the planting bed is several acres, you could simply mark where you planted and then plant next to that with no need to wait.

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