Cover crop for Zone 5?
beebooks
8 years ago
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
8 years agobeebooks
8 years agoRelated Discussions
seeking cover crops for these situations
Comments (3)There are many cover crop seeds available through catalogs, but I find the seeds from that source are usually more expensive then I can purchase them for locally. and often those catalogs require purchasing more seed then I need. For a plot 81 square feet you would need ounces of seed, not pounds....See MoreCover crops for Zone 9
Comments (11)diamond, that is a tough question because you are in a climate which never freezes. much of the cover crop studies have been done for colder climates. Upthread I suggest favas, and they are good because they are nitrogen fixers, they have a tap root, and they die when you mow them. there are other crops that die by mowing, and you would be better off starting with those. unless you can crimp your cover crops, in which case you can use difficult to terminate crops like rye triticale or vetch, which have a lot to offer in terms of the biology they can develop. navigate to youtube and search for stomper crimper. Mine has a steel edge but apparently this guy is doing well with a wooden edge. it is the small scale equivalent of a roller crimper, which you can also look at on youtube to get the basic concepts of terminating by crimping. time is of the essence for rolling crimping as crimping only works when plants are close to blooming....See MoreZone 4 cover crop for raised beds?
Comments (26)Sorry to further hi-jack the subject-line of this thread. But the 'pissing contest' seems to have overtaken courtesy. When I do a google search on my REAL NAME [not forum moniker] I get 20,305 'hits'. I know from experience that many of the references to my name are duplicates and even bogus hits. I used to be very active ... my name is on a lawsuit against the CA Board of Ed, which went clear to the U.S. Sup.Ct.[we lost, which is not the same thing as being wrong] I only mention this to mitigate for the silly claim about 763 'hits' for kimmsr's name in connection with money. Which is apropos of nothing. What does it matter if this participant has a 'thing' about not wasting money. How is that different from your 'thing' about holding his views up to ridicule. If we search your name in connection with smarmy, sarcastic references to kimmsr, what will we find? Nice try, but no cigar....See MoreA few questions about planting cover crop in zone 5
Comments (8)I have grown a cover crop or I have covered the garden bed with shredded leaves, but never both at the same time. Sometimes a few leaves will get trapped in the cover crop but that is not the same as laying down 6 to 8 inches of leaves which would smother any cover crop you are growing. The leaves will have a Carbon to Nitrogen ratio of between 40 and 80 to 1, almost adequate to promote proper composting. When I have plunked down a goodly amount of leaves on the clay soils of NW Indiana and SE Ohio, shredded and unshredded, over the winter we found the soil the following spring to be more workable and that plants grew better with only a small amount of compost added, much less then the previous year when no leaves were added. If this new plot is now ready for planting I would seed Buckwheat which will be ready to cut by the time the leaves start to fall and then cover that cut Buckwheat and the soil with the leaves for the winter....See Morekimmq
8 years agobeebooks
8 years agobeebooks
8 years agoelisa_z5
8 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
8 years agobeebooks
8 years agokimmq
8 years agopeter_6
8 years agowayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
8 years ago
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