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danielinthelionsden

Vegetable to cover crop transition challenges

4 months ago
last modified: 4 months ago

My soil is a silty clay loom. It's super vulnerable to compaction, erosion, and resists hydration changes (resists drying out in spring & resists absorbing watering during dry weather).

A few years ago I implemented cover crops on no-till/low-till as a way to fight against these challenges. I wouldn't say they were a miracle cure but they do help. The challenge I find is in the transition from cover crop to food crop in the spring and then back to cover crop again in the fall. I find that especially in the fall my food crop isn't really done before it's time to plant the cover. This has pushed me to use Cereal Rye since it can be planted so late, October for me in Zone 6a in central IN. But, then it's (rye) not ready to manually terminate in the spring till after the planting dates for many cold weather crops such as lettuces, chard, radish, mustard & collard greens, etc.

I've finally landed on a dual cover rotation where I plant oats & radishes after warm weather crops such as zucchini & cucumber and rye after some the crops that live a little longer like tomatoes, winter squash & sunflowers. Then, in spring cold weather crops can follow oats & radishes while warm weather crops can follow rye. This sort of works but I still find that if I want to get the cover planted in time to actually do any good. I'm still terminating my food crop before it's totally done and I'm still waiting later than I prefer to plant after the rye, even for warm weather crops.

Has anyone else faced this challenge with cover crops in the garden and found any better solution than this?

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