Cover crops and permanent rows~anyone doing them?

[keljonma]

We've mostly used buckwheat as cover crop ... honeybees love buckwheat flowers and we love buckwheat honey.

 

[Lady Henevere]

This is the second year I'm cover cropping with red clover and vetch, and this year I added fodder radishes. I don't do rows; I follow more of a "permaculture-style/mimicking nature" kind of gardening so I just scatter the seeds in the areas where nothing else is growing over winter. I will chop-and-drop it in spring, and follow it with summer veggies. Its great for benefitting the soil, with the added bonus of being pretty.

 

[peteyfoozer]

Are you planting it where the veggies will grow, or in between? I love this idea. I have never done a cover crop before, but would love to do that. I also wonder how would this be to plant in the 'chicken corral' for when they are let out to free range?

 

[~gd]

The clover is just high~not in raised beds....I don't have raised beds in this pic but I do hill up my existing, permanent rows to a raised status, then mulch that raised bed or even plant more clover after that planting is mature enough to not need anymore hilling up.

The clover you see is just White Dutch...I chose it as it grows well in my soils, it doesn't get very high~it will get only a little taller than what you see here, the honeybees will work on it but I've read they won't work the red clover and as you can see, it grows thick enough to choke out any weeds.

When the garden is hilled and mulched, the effect is simply neat, beautiful and clean looking. Plus...everyone thinks I have some fertile garden going on because everywhere you look is green, when most people have brown between their rows.

The clover fixes nitrogen in the soil...right where I need it most.

Bee I hope you don't think I am targeting you, I am an equal oppurituny skeptic. starting with your first post. that clover used for pathways actually wastes more moisture back to the air than a mulched pathway would, clover itself does not fix nitrogen, microbes living on its roots do, and most of that nitrogen is used by the clover itself, thus not available to the rest of your garden until the clover dies and then it is free. Your other points in the OP were right on. but clover also attracks rabbits and deer...
permanent rows? Our Master Gardeners tell us not to plant the same thing in an area year after year because the crops tend to exhaust anything that they need a lot of and pests that feed on them tend to concentrate there too. They preach crop rotation for annual crops. If I were to show her your picture she would probally ask me what cover I had planted in your brown rows and just when was I planning to turn over the green manure (your pathways) of course methods have to be right for local conditions and I don't know yours....~gd

 

[mrbstephens]

I've read (somewhere) that a great method is to alternate rows and pathways year after year. Meaning what you have as pathway this year, use a good cover crop like clover and till it under next year and make that your new planting beds. Your beds from last year would be the walkways for this year. Does that make sense?

 

[peteyfoozer]

That makes perfect sense to me! Thanks for clarifying that!

 

[Dawn419]

I've read (somewhere) that a great method is to alternate rows and pathways year after year. Meaning what you have as pathway this year, use a good cover crop like clover and till it under next year and make that your new planting beds. Your beds from last year would be the walkways for this year. Does that make sense?

That's how we did our gardens when I was a kid, growing up in South Jersey.

If our soil wasn't so rocky out here in AR, I'd still use that method.

 

[hqueen13]

use a good cover crop like clover and till it under next year and make that your new planting beds.

For an ignorant probably-not-very-green-thumb, if you till it under would there be a chance that the clover would come up in your crops later?

 

[mrbstephens]

use a good cover crop like clover and till it under next year and make that your new planting beds.

For an ignorant probably-not-very-green-thumb, if you till it under would there be a chance that the clover would come up in your crops later?

Good question! Let me know when you find the answer. LOL!

 

[Beekissed]

The clover is just high~not in raised beds....I don't have raised beds in this pic but I do hill up my existing, permanent rows to a raised status, then mulch that raised bed or even plant more clover after that planting is mature enough to not need anymore hilling up.

The clover you see is just White Dutch...I chose it as it grows well in my soils, it doesn't get very high~it will get only a little taller than what you see here, the honeybees will work on it but I've read they won't work the red clover and as you can see, it grows thick enough to choke out any weeds.

When the garden is hilled and mulched, the effect is simply neat, beautiful and clean looking. Plus...everyone thinks I have some fertile garden going on because everywhere you look is green, when most people have brown between their rows.

The clover fixes nitrogen in the soil...right where I need it most.

Bee I hope you don't think I am targeting you, I am an equal oppurituny skeptic. starting with your first post. that clover used for pathways actually wastes more moisture back to the air than a mulched pathway would, clover itself does not fix nitrogen, microbes living on its roots do, and most of that nitrogen is used by the clover itself, thus not available to the rest of your garden until the clover dies and then it is free. Your other points in the OP were right on. but clover also attracks rabbits and deer...
permanent rows? Our Master Gardeners tell us not to plant the same thing in an area year after year because the crops tend to exhaust anything that they need a lot of and pests that feed on them tend to concentrate there too. They preach crop rotation for annual crops. If I were to show her your picture she would probally ask me what cover I had planted in your brown rows and just when was I planning to turn over the green manure (your pathways) of course methods have to be right for local conditions and I don't know yours....~gd

I don't have to worry about rabbits or deer in my gardens...I have good dogs.

Permanent rows does not mean one plants the same crop in the same row each year...of course crops are rotated to different areas/rows of the garden. And, of course, I don't keep the same pathways forever....sometimes the clover is plowed under and the rows are planted with clover. Permanent is relative, I guess.

As grasses are continually dying and renewing as a matter of course, with repeated footwear, etc., the bacteria releasing nitrogen would naturally release during these times. Mulch tends to be expensive, travels during a hard rain, keeps the moisture trapped during rainy springs and doesn't allow good runoff and has to be renewed often, not to mention has to be thick enough to smother weeds but invariably parts enough to allow weed growth...weeds love mulch too.

The clover adds nitrogen and nutrients to the soil in other ways as well by providing a habitat for worms and beneficial predator bugs, not to mention by not plowing the soil in that area, that is less carbon released into the air and out of my garden soils. It also attracts honey bees and other pollinators..something that mulch simply cannot do, no matter how much you apply.

One can also mow the clover, which tosses the clippings right at the base of the plants in the rows....green manure right where it's needed most. With the mowing of the clover, this also causes a dying back of some of the root system, as roots usually follow crown, which again releases nitrogen into the soils as the bacteria dies and also releases carbon into the soil as the root matter dies...nitrogen plus carbon= good soil nutrients for plants growing nearby.

The problem with always being skeptical of other paradigms is that one never actually tries anything for themselves and merely follows the same path of the accepted wisdom....as with anything different, particularly when it comes to gardening or livestock husbandry, YMMV according to your region, weather patterns, what you plant and how good and attentive a gardener or farmer you actually are.

But you will never really know unless you actually try a few things out for yourself..... That's why we post these threads~so that others may read about one's experience with a different, new, or even old and forgotten, method that worked well for them and may...just may...work for others if they have the curiosity to try it.

Over the past 5 years I've tried many different gardening methods just to see the results and I've found many of them to be quite effective and an improvement over how my ancestors have raised gardens for years...not to say they didn't grow just as many veggies and fruits...but they did it with much more labor intensive methods for the same amount of produce I can grow with much more ease, much less watering/irrigation, much less use of chemicals to control pests. I like the "ease" part best....