If the peas can handle the amendments, then there should be no reason not to use them as a cover crop. However, once the blueberries are in the ground, you should keep them totally free of any competition.

That is a tough one. I am not sure what I would INTERPLANT with existing plants. I guess I would plant something that definitely dies and stays short. Peanuts? If you fail, then it all gets dug in anyway. Soybeans? Too tall? The great thing about beans is that they are cheap, a legume, and edible. Yum. Consider sweet potatoes. They crawl. Pumpkins are unruly, but they will not propagate and are easily killed. Each of these is mildly ornamental. Or just mulch it with something that will degrade slowly over the course of months or a year.

Glad they missed you Marla. I don't think we got as much rain here as they predicted and it looks like it's letting up and tomorrow will actually just be showers. I made 8 jars of blackberry jam today with all the frozen berries I had from 2 yrs ago. DH doesn't think I should go to market next week since I don't have that much fresh stuff (kale etc. is till small and lettuce is about 1" tall after a month!) but I think it might be worth the $20 just to be there opening day and have people see me, they might remember me in a few weeks when I do have greens (I hope) and then berries, squash. Who knows when I'll have tomatoes, I think I might have to replant this weekend. High of 55 today and all this rain since I put out the transplants - if they're not diseased, do you think I can fertilize (I'm sure all the N from the little bit of manure I mixed in each hole is gone) and they'll take off, or is it better to just replace with potted plants from garage? Guess I'll see Saturday if everything looks drowned. I know you can buy pectin in bulk online, if you don't need too much Walmart had the "bulk" (4.7 oz jar) of Ball no-sugar pectin for under $5 today (I bought just in case), says it makes 22 half pints (not sure how much a box makes - I've used it for pepper jellies before but don't think I even used full box, or how much a box cost but Ball says it replaces "3-4 boxes"??).

I don't have any personal experience with cover crops, but have accumulated some anecdotal knowledge here and there. >>I'm wondering if experienced gardeners really do this. Seems to be more commonly practiced by more serious, larger scale vegetable growers and an increasing number of environmentally savvy commercial farmers. It really is a good way to get appreciable amounts of nitrogen into the soil without overfertilizing the soil leading to other problems. >>If so, how late in the year can you do this effectively -- my flowers are still robust. October - perhaps even late October. I don't know, it might even be possible to plant certain cover crops in November. >>Can you just sow seed directly on the ground? Yes, that's how it's done. >>And is there anything you like to plant that doesn't require tilling or spading next spring when you convert it back to flowers? Tilling it under in the spring a few weeks before you plant your summer stuff is really the key to making the whole thing work. Being nitrogen fixing, colonizing plants, cover crops tend to be very competitive and prolific if they are allowed to go to seed. If you plant an annual cover crop and don't till it in, it will go to seed, then you have a weed problem. If you plant a perennial cover crop (something I haven't really heard of, but could be possible) and don't rototill it in (perhaps even if you do), then you have a weed problem - it will both persist and compete with your other plants, as well as go to seed. I'll probably restrict the use of cover crops to my vegetable garden, for the time being (starting this fall perhaps). Maybe future discoveries will result in wider applications for cover crops that will be more useful to home gardeners.