Hi there,
I’m planning to open up new ground next season for vegetables. Currently, I have a lot of weeds so I’m planning to flail mow, irrigate, tarp, broadfork, seed with cover crop, let grow 10 weeks, flail mow and start again.
My main priority is to beat back the weeds but I’d like to improve soil pH (currently 7.8), raise organic matter and improve soil fertility.
My question is: what cover crop(s) would you recommend for someone without a lot of time and looking to keep investment reasonable?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers
Glen
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Hi Glen, you might look at cover crops that will winter kill, if you are looking to plant on the ground fairly early next spring. They will be easiest to manage too assuming you don’t want to do a burn down on them. Oats would be cheap, I’m sure Daikon/Tillage radish is cheap too. Both are fairly standard cover crops. Our experience is in Rye and Red clover, which are great but can be harder to kill in an organic field situation. Maybe they would tarp kill well, I’m not sure. Beyond that I’m sure someone else may have better input. I’m not sure if you’d find a cover crop to change pH easily or quickly- you might find an amendment does a better job. My dad has used lime before to raise the pH.
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Buckwheat/oat/austrian peas now. Mow and interplant with rye in the fall. You could add daikon to the rye.
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All very good recommendations, I prefer oats/peas or buckwheat but millet could also add a lot organic matter in a short time.
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If you did it right away you’d have time to do a crop of straight buckwheat, which is good for weed surpression, the. You could terminate that when it flowers and seed oats and peas to grow until frost.
My experience with mixing buckwheat with other crops is that it matures much more quickly and sets seed before the other crops are mature enough.
My preference in your situation would be to till it, leave it fallow for 2-3 weeks for a flush of weeds to germinate then lightly till it to kill the weeds then seeds oats and peas. That would time nicely for them to be killed by frost near maturity so you’d get lots of benefit from them plus the fallow would kill a crop of weed seeds
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Thanks so much for the help on this one all! The consensus for oats/peas is compelling so I’m mostly going to do that. I’m going to do one test block with buckwheat just to see how that goes also.
I was looking for affordable sourcing options for seed and ended up choosing General Seed Company. I hope to find something in the east end in the future as it is a bit of a hike to Hamilton for the seed.
Thanks again all!