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Post by Gianna on Aug 18, 2019 22:16:55 GMT -5
In reworking part of the front garden area on a slight slope, I put in a row of stones to make a small (tiny) terrace. I used some of the stones from around the defunct koi pond - They look quite nice, esp since they are at the very front of the yard. I thought they would be more difficult to move since they average about 2 feet long by 5 inches by 5 inches. This is the limit of what I can still lift without too much difficulty.
Anyway, this created a nice bed of about 16 feet long, and 2 plus wide - this part of the bed is half of the bed, the other half still planted with tomatoes and bean pots and covered with mulch.
I was going to cover the area with clippings and mulch, and fabric and let it decompose till next year, but decided there was more than enough time to plant a cover crop... so I did. This area had been part of my no till system until being redesigned recently. The soil was in pretty good shape, which surprised me since some of the topsoil brought in by a previous owner was some sort of sandy silt, with emphasis on the sandy part. It grew stuff well enough, but requires constant watering, and does not make a good home for worms. Just not enough clay particles. It also breaks down organic material very fast.
So I planted a cover crop. Cover crops apparently give better results when many varieties are planted, not a single variety. The seed I used were Buckwheat and red clover, and seeds for the garden I had but will not plant again - two varieties of peas and purple kohl-rabi. Also some small sun flowers. Plus all the seeds previously in the soil - likely lots of arugula, bachelor buttons, some little white daisy, Calendulas, Cal poppies, and who knows what other weedy things. Even the weeds will make a good addition to the cover crop since the intent is to keep living plants in the soil, and send roots down for organic material.
After they have grown enough - not sure how long, I'll trim them as close to the ground as possible with hedge sheers, leaving all the roots in the soil, then cover the area and clippings with a black tarp and let them die and decompose.
Last year I did this with a bed of thick green weeds after our rains, and the soil was extremely fertile afterwards. I've seen this on videos and was surprised how well it works.
Anyone else using cover crops or green manures this year?
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Post by paquebot on Aug 18, 2019 22:32:09 GMT -5
Just a few things wrong. One of the purposes of cover crops is "green manure". That is, trning the growing plants into the soil to keep the nitrogen. That's in the green tops, not the roots. Exceptions would be tiller or daikon radishes which do leave a lot of nutrientsin the soil. Check enough videos and you'll find some who explain all the facts.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Aug 18, 2019 22:37:32 GMT -5
paquebot, Gianna, I used to plant black-eyed Peas and till under like Martin said. Makes it ready for the following year. I was going to do hairy vetch one year, but my uncle talked me out of it. That's when I decided to use peas.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 18, 2019 22:43:00 GMT -5
Check enough videos and you'll find some who explain all the facts. Uh... I have watched a great many videos on the subject. That's why I am doing it the way I am. I rarely till my soil, and I'm not doing it solely for the nitrogen, but rather to incorporate organic matter into the soil via the roots left behind. I would use tillage radishes, but I dont happen to have seed at the moment. This was a last minute decision so I went with what I had on hand.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 18, 2019 23:01:07 GMT -5
I used to plant black-eyed Peas and till under like Martin said. Makes it ready for the following year. I was going to do hairy vetch one year, but my uncle talked me out of it. That's when I decided to use peas. I no longer till my soil unless there are special circumstances. In one bed in the back, for example, there is some bermuda grass growing, and I'm having to dig it out there - which I am not happy about. And here there is no "following year" per se - it's one loooong continuous year. I love the physical act of tilling the soil, but no longer do it because I don't want to damage the natural soil structure or web of microbial soil life in my soil. It's not the traditional way of doing things in the garden, but like intermittent fasting, new effective methods to improve things do come along.
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Post by paquebot on Aug 18, 2019 23:44:02 GMT -5
The practice of planting cover crops for green manure has long been an agricultural thing. The very word "green" should be a clue, It was most effective when all fields were plowed. The purpose was to fix the nitrogen into the soil. And that nitrogen is from the green part.
Any growing plant removes phosphorus and potassium from the soil and that goes up into the plant. Removing that is the same as disposing the P and K nutrients that the roots have found. The nitrogen is almost all stored in the green portions of the plant, not the roots unless it's a legume. If the growing green portion of a cover crop is not tilled back in, the result is a net loss of nutrients, not a gain.
Look at it with a very wide view to see the whole picture. Look at what is needed in a compost pile. That will tell you what the aboveground portion of plants is made of and where they get it. The trade-off for what little organic matter goes into the soil from roots is not good. It's organic matter but those roots sent the nutrients up into the plants.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 0:04:59 GMT -5
I'm sure my little bed will be a total failure, lol. But it sure is fun.
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Post by brownrexx on Aug 19, 2019 5:50:07 GMT -5
Although Gianna , method does not fit the traditional definition of a cover crop or a green manure, I think that she is more interested in adding organic materisl. I used tillage radishes one year and it worked great. Tillage radishes are a lot bigger and longer than daikon radishes but if you don't have freezing temperatures like I do they will not be killed by frost. The idea is that the radishes die and decompose thereby leaving tunnels in the soil for water to penetrate and freeze during the winter. This loosens the soil and that is why I did it to help with my compacted, clay soil. The reason that I didn't do it again is because I have crops growing so late in the year and there is no space available to plant the radishes. Here is what the tillage radish crop looked like after frost. I also noticed that the dead leaves helped suppress weeds. DSC00633 by Brownrexx, on Flickr
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Post by pondgardener on Aug 19, 2019 8:05:57 GMT -5
I used to plant black-eyed Peas and till under like Martin said. Makes it ready for the following year. I was going to do hairy vetch one year, but my uncle talked me out of it. That's when I decided to use peas. So hairymooseknuckles , why did your uncle talk you out of it? I have been planting hairy vetch for the last five years with good results but would appreciate any feedback.
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Post by paulf on Aug 19, 2019 8:34:01 GMT -5
I think you need to be in the right place for a cover crop to do anything. My garden grows right up to frost. Then it all gets taken out and the remaining mulch tilled under and the soil rests for the winter. One year I tried a cover crop and nothing came up until spring so that when I tried to plant the spring garden I fought the cover crop all summer. Maybe if there were big areas of the garden without anything growing for the last part of the year I could grow green manure and till it in sometime. More of a headache here. I guess I need to watch more videos in order to get it right.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Aug 19, 2019 9:10:55 GMT -5
I'm sure my little bed will be a total failure, lol. But it sure is fun. A bet it will be just fine. My failures in gardening weren't failures because I learned valuable information from them .
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Aug 19, 2019 9:15:13 GMT -5
I used to plant black-eyed Peas and till under like Martin said. Makes it ready for the following year. I was going to do hairy vetch one year, but my uncle talked me out of it. That's when I decided to use peas. So hairymooseknuckles , why did your uncle talk you out of it? I have been planting hairy vetch for the last five years with good results but would appreciate any feedback. He is old school. He didn't understand my ideas of gardening organically. All he knew was go throw seed and fertilizer. Farmers have different ideas, not saying wrong, just different. I don't think he had ever heard of hairy vetch. HAha
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 9:42:03 GMT -5
I'm sure my little bed will be a total failure, lol. But it sure is fun. A bet it will be just fine. My failures in gardening weren't failures because I learned valuable information from them . I really dont think it will be a failure - I'm quite looking forward to it growing. I was being a bit late-night sarcastic to all the 'instructions'. But even if it is a failure - even if it becomes nothing more than a glorified bunny buffet - something good will come of it. If nothing else, the bed will be ready for an application of compost or mulch and ready for something else to be planted. I'm thinking that later today, while the bed is still very fresh and moist from being seeded, I'm also going to plant in some Scabiosa seedlings that are beginning to bud. Then all the cover crop plants - the good, the bad, and the ugly - can duke it out in the next few months. This patch is right in the front of the property, not an agricultural field, and flowers are always welcome. Actually, to me, flowers are always welcome everywhere.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 9:58:29 GMT -5
I think you need to be in the right place for a cover crop to do anything. My garden grows right up to frost. Then it all gets taken out and the remaining mulch tilled under and the soil rests for the winter. One year I tried a cover crop and nothing came up until spring so that when I tried to plant the spring garden I fought the cover crop all summer. Maybe if there were big areas of the garden without anything growing for the last part of the year I could grow green manure and till it in sometime. More of a headache here. I guess I need to watch more videos in order to get it right. I think there are a lot of different climates, techniques, and outcomes using cover crops. One size does not fit all. I live in a warm Mediterranean climate with no frost at all (extremely rare, like H*ll freezing over) and things actively grow for 12 months. So when seeded and watered, they start to grow immediately and just keep going... It's not yet Sept so mine will grow till I cut them back in November??. And that leaves me plenty of time to cover the debris and roots with a tarp, and for the worms and microbes to break it down for early season planting. If you get frost, that would help with the killing, but if they havent germinated yet, obvious problems. There has to be a way to kill the stuff, preferably not using herbicides. Here, growing in limited beds, I can deprive them of sunlight and they decompose beneath. I've seen some market gardeners using silage tarps to cover many beds at once and getting 'ready to plant' beds just from letting nature do the work. No till system. Whatever works in each persons garden, and for whatever reasons. I have shifted to no-till gardening cuz I dont have a really large garden, and the beds are all over the yard. Also I'm old and want to keep gardening for many more years. No-till is something relatively new to me, and surprisingly, the plants do better with less work. Not 'no work'.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 10:12:24 GMT -5
He is old school. He didn't understand my ideas of gardening organically. All he knew was go throw seed and fertilizer. Farmers have different ideas, not saying wrong, just different. I don't think he had ever heard of hairy vetch. HAha I had purchased some black-eyed peas to plant sometime last year, but at the moment they are lost. Hairy vetch does well here and is naturalized in many places. Someday I'll plant that too in my beds. I have harvested local seed of a nice Medicago, another legume, and it grows very well here as another naturalized weed... but it seems to have some sort of seasonal germination requirement. My mom's extended family in the midwest were all old school farmers too. But they were also smart and I'd like to think they'd adapt to some of the newer ways of thinking. Or not. But they are all gone now so we'll never know. It's also hard to change when one has been relatively successful doing it 'the right way' - while having to put bread on the table for your family. That does not allow for much experimentation. Hobby gardeners like me have far more lee-way - if my garden does not produce, I can go to the grocery.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Aug 19, 2019 13:40:19 GMT -5
Gianna, I don't think there's anything wrong with your methods. I hope I didn't imply your methods were wrong. Many people have proved time and again there's more than one way to be successful. I'm also interested in no till because my days of standing behind one are over. I do miss plowing on my Farmall though. My raised bed had to be completely cleaned out because the ferel cats used it as their public toilet. I need some kind of barrier to keep them out.
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Post by paquebot on Aug 19, 2019 14:06:27 GMT -5
Cover crops in part of this area are common and mostly for protecting the soil. Already some light-soil potato fields are green from rye. That does little to enrich the soil any more than regular grass would. Planting for green manure used to be common and we used Ladino and Alsace clover on the farm. Grown as green manure, that was a great free source of nitrogen. Now it is cheaper just to buy nitrogen fertilizer rather than the fuel needed to sow and plow. At WeGrowGarlic we used rye one year and a clover mix the next. Rye was no problem and added carbon humus to the soi. Clover then became a weed for several years due to some original seeds not germinating. Good idea for a farm field but not for a garden.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 14:20:52 GMT -5
I don't think there's anything wrong with your methods. I hope I didn't imply your methods were wrong. Many people have proved time and again there's more than one way to be successful. Thanks, Moose - I dont think there is anything wrong with my methods either. I've used them on occasion in the past with success, and it just keeps getting better. What I'm doing seems particularly suited to SoCalifornia. And you didnt imply my methods were wrong, nor did I take it so. I'm also interested in no till because my days of standing behind one are over. I do miss plowing on my Farmall though. I think it would be well-worth starting a separate thread on the subject. it's a technique I've switched over to the past few years as I've gotten older, and makes gardening much easier while still having success. It's probably not for everyone however since some have their gardening down to a successful formula already.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 14:46:34 GMT -5
I used tillage radishes one year and it worked great. Tillage radishes are a lot bigger and longer than daikon radishes but if you don't have freezing temperatures like I do they will not be killed by frost. The idea is that the radishes die and decompose thereby leaving tunnels in the soil for water to penetrate and freeze during the winter. This loosens the soil and that is why I did it to help with my compacted, clay soil. Having heard so much about them, I've always wanted to plant them, although I'm not sure they would be right for my gardening set-up. We dont have frosts, so they wouldnt die. My garden beds are not compacted. And I've heard that when decomposing, they have a rotten egg smell. So.... maybe not. I do however use other crucifers as part of my cover crops - Arugula works very well, no one eats it, it produces a nice root, and grows very quickly producing lots of leaf matter. Even regular crops that reach the end of their cycle are not pulled, but rather clipped off at the base in order to leave their roots in the soil. Last year I had broccoli and kale and collards, and when it was time, I cut them off at their bases... but they did not die - they regrew, both producing another round of lovely leaves and for the broc, heads. We also have here wild mustard, and wild radish, both of which invade the garden. If they come up with an official cover crop, I leave them, because like the tillage radish, they produce lovely tap roots. Not the girth of that radish, but good enough, and free.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Aug 19, 2019 16:55:46 GMT -5
Gianna, Many years ago (back in the 90s sometime) I planted buckwheat as a cover crop, when I dug up the last half of my garden. Problem is, some must have not germinated, and they became a weed, like paquebot says happened with clover, and it got progressively worse, since they self-seed big time. And if you don't turn them under, which is the method you are going to use, you will have a major crop of buckwheat there! I tried getting rid of it by pulling it before it would flower, for several years, getting 4-5 buckets of weeds every time, and it reduced, but I finally gave up. It's still one of the major weeds out there. Good thing about them - they choke out some other weeds, and they have short roots, so they pull easily! And they compost well.
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Post by brownrexx on Aug 19, 2019 17:03:02 GMT -5
And I've heard that when decomposing, they have a rotten egg smell. So.... maybe not. They might but I never noticed because they die after I am done gardening and I have a large yard so I am not out there much after I quit gardening and it gets cold.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 17:55:41 GMT -5
Problem is, some must have not germinated, and they became a weed, like paquebot says happened with clover, and it got progressively worse, since they self-seed big time. And if you don't turn them under, which is the method you are going to use, you will have a major crop of buckwheat there! I've used buckwheat as a cover crop on and off for a few years in various beds, even letting it (encouraging it) to go to seed. I have had zero trouble with it reseeding. I think in one bed, once, I had a scant few coming up the next year. But then I do not turn my cover crops under - fewer weeds is reported to be one of the good things about gardening with no-till - you dont continually stir up and re-plant weed seeds (and diseases) as you do when you till every season. I do have weeds that come back, but not a single plant I have ever seeded as a cover crop has become a weed. If it's not the no tillage being responsible, perhaps the numerous birds in my area take care of seeds left on the surface of the soil. I have had decorative flowers come back, but even those are not common. Calendula does, but I never planted that one - it just was here, and keeps coming up every year after it rains. But it's both pretty and welcome.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Aug 19, 2019 18:03:27 GMT -5
I've got what I call blood weeds. Grow Anywhere from 6 to 8 feet tall and 1/2 to 3/4 round. Luckily, they are shallow rooted. Sometimes when I'm feeling better, I'll go out and snap a picture. They grow all over here!
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Post by Gianna on Aug 19, 2019 18:07:55 GMT -5
They might but I never noticed because they die after I am done gardening and I have a large yard so I am not out there much after I quit gardening and it gets cold. I've seen this mentioned a couple times on videos. Maybe in our warmer climate the smell might even be worse. I wouldnt care so much in back, but right now I'm gardening a lot in the front and I wouldnt want to subject walkers to it. I live on a hill where there are a great many people who walk for exercise - it's apparently just the right length, slope, with very little traffic, and the view is really nice.
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Post by bestofour on Aug 19, 2019 21:46:23 GMT -5
I planted a cover crop one year and it didn't die totally back so I read about a method where sections are removed and vegetables planted in those sections and when the rest of the cover crop dies back there is supposed to be a path to walk on. Didn't work for my warm climate. The cover crop that was left just grew right along with the vegetables and into the vegetables and years later some of it is still out there.
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Post by paquebot on Aug 19, 2019 22:40:23 GMT -5
bestofour, you pretty much summed it up. If you don't know what you are doing at the start, the outcome is not always as expected. Both cover crops and green manure are agricultural things that are not always applicable to a backyard garden. When adapted to a garden, there are just too many things that can go wrong and they usually do. Both terms have a specific meaning and neither applicable to a garden. 'Nuff said! Martin The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 20, 2019 9:35:35 GMT -5
Both terms have a specific meaning and neither applicable to a garden. 'Nuff said! Seriously? Of course they can make perfectly acceptable strategies in some home gardens. All species may not work for everyone in every climate, nor with every gardening technique, but for some of us, it most definitely works. My garden is proof of that.
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Post by paquebot on Aug 20, 2019 13:04:02 GMT -5
Yes, seriously. Both terms have specific definitions which are mainly applicable to agriculture. Nothing seriously wrong with what you are doing. If you are basing the terms on a video, it's further proof that not everything on the Internet is factual.
Green manure: "a fertilizer consisting of growing plants that are plowed into the soil."
Cover crop: "a crop grown for the protection and enrichment of the soil."
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Gianna on Aug 20, 2019 13:07:18 GMT -5
n reworking part of the front garden area on a slight slope, I put in a row of stones to make a small (tiny) terrace. I used some of the stones from around the defunct koi pond - They look quite nice, esp since they are at the very front of the yard. Back to the original topic. In the front of the property, I've decided there is room for another lightly terraced bed. Already this morning Ive removed the mulch from the area and the adjacent path. Next will be bringing in more edging stones from the back. These won't be as nice, but they will be behind the lantana and less visible. Then to build up the bed a bit higher, bring in any extra soil from around the yard - it's quite variable from native clay to extra topsoil, and of course some of the unfinished compost. When that is all raked and straightened, I'll plant another mixed cover crop to get this new soil into better shape for early next year planting. I'm thinking a nice thick bed of showy flowers for next spring. This likely is going to take more than just today to complete. But the weather is not too hot, and you never know...
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Post by Gianna on Aug 20, 2019 13:31:08 GMT -5
... it's further proof that not everything on the Internet is factual. This I certainly believe... including what is written on internet forums... There was another recent thread here about where we look for information. Google or someone we know. In the end, it's a matter of sorting through the volumes of information from many sources, coupled with our own life experiences and education. In the end we choose who and what to believe based on many factors, including instincts. Even after deciding which direction to go, ideally we keep an open mind for any further advances - that's a major key to life-long learning. Of course. This is EXACTLY what I am doing. For you to say you can't do this in a garden situation is mind-boggling. You just do it on a smaller scale.
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