Cover Crops: Improve Clay Soils

October 11, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Utisols, also known as red clay soils, are the most common soil type in the Southeastern United States. They’re what many Southern Exposure Seed Exchange customers and seed growers garden. While many gardeners may wish they had soft, dark loam, clay soils aren’t terrible. Like any soil, they come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. In this post, we’ll discuss the features of clay soil and how you can use cover crops to improve it.

Advantages of Clay Soil

Clay soils aren’t perfect, but they come with their own set of advantages. Clay soil holds water for much longer than sandy soil, especially when you mulch it, helping you cut down on that water bill.

Clay soil is also high in nutrients and minerals that plants need, the perfect starting place for a garden. All of those tiny clay particles are also very good at holding onto nutrients from amendments that tend to leach out of sandy soil quickly.

While clay soils are dense, that density helps perennial plants and fruit trees hold tightly to the ground and withstand wind, storms, and erosion better than in light, sandy soil.

Disadvantages of Clay Soils

If you’ve ever had to till or dig garden beds in clay, you’re probably already familiar with one of the main disadvantages. Clay soil is heavy. This makes working it quite troublesome. When it’s wet, it’s heavy and sticky. When it’s dry, it’s often brick-like.

This same characteristic also means that clay soil compacts easily. Especially when the soil is wet, walking on it or using equipment on it can cause severe compaction. Heavy, dense clay soil can be especially tough to deal with if you’re hoping to grow root vegetables like carrots.

Some of its advantages can have a negative side, too. If you live in boggy or low areas, clay soil’s ability to hold water isn’t ideal and can lead to issues like root rot. Additionally, its ability to hold little particles also means that it can hold onto bad particles like salt, and changing the soil’s pH may take some serious work.

What Do Clay Soils Need?

The best thing you can do to amend clay soil is to add plenty of organic matter. There are many ways to add organic, including compost, mulch, leaf mold, peat moss, and cover crops.

Don’t add sand. It can be a tempting choice to improve drainage, but it gets stuck between the clay particles and creates denser, brick-like soil.

Though somewhat slow, cover crops are an excellent, affordable way to build up organic matter in the soil each season. They can help add nutrients and break up hard pans and compaction, allowing air and water into the soil.

Using Cover Crops to Improve Clay Soils

There are several great cover crops for improving clay soil, and fall is a great time to plant them! While all cover crops are good, some excel in specific areas.

Cover Crops to Add Organic Matter

Clover

Clover is an all-around good choice for cover cropping. Clovers fix nitrogen and produce plenty of organic matter. White Clover can be sown in late winter, spring, summer, or fall. It also makes an excellent living mulch for pathways. Mowing these paths and collecting the material with a bagger gives you a consistent supply of mulch and organic matter for the beds they border.

Winter Wheat

Though generally grown as a cereal, winter wheat is also an excellent cover crop. It produces a large amount of mulch material, adding plenty of organic matter to the soil. It’s also easy to kill and less likely to get weedy than other cover crops. It’s also a great cover crop for no-till systems. Mow it down in the spring and transplant it into the beds.

Buckwheat

Buckwheat is one of the fastest-growing cover crops. It can create tons of organic matter in just 30 to 45 days. We recommend sowing buckwheat with crimson clover for a fall or winter cover crop. The buckwheat acts as a nurse crop for the crimson clover during the heat of the day. In the fall, the buckwheat is killed by frost.

Cover Crops to Break Up Compacted Soil

Daikon Radishes

Daikon Radishes are popular for compacted soils because their tough, fast-growing roots easily break up the soil. They put on rapid fall growth, and winter kills them where temps regularly get below 20°F.

The crop residue from daikons decomposes quickly and releases its nitrogen early. The channels created by radish roots improve infiltration, drainage, soil warming, and growth of the next crop’s root systems.

Rye

Rye is a great winter cover crop with an extensive root system, making it an excellent choice for improving soil structure in compacted beds. Rye is very good at releasing phosphorus and potassium. It also stabilizes excess soil and manure nitrogen.

Many of us gardeners of the Southeast grow our crops in red clay soils. While we’re thankful for the nutrients and other advantages they bring, they also have a few downfalls. One of the most affordable ways to improve these soils is to grow cover crops. Choose one of these cover crops and sow this fall to improve your clay soil this winter.

Garden Advice, Seed Saving

Simple Seed Saving: Marigolds

October 3, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Easy to grow, beautiful, and handy to have around, marigolds have earned a spot in many home gardens. Their bright, ruffled blooms and rich, musky smell make them alluring to humans but off-putting to many pests. They are among the easiest seeds to save. There’s very little processing. You just need to harvest the seeds and let them air dry for winter. Here’s how to save marigold seeds step by step so that you can have plentiful blooms all next season, too!

Choose an Open-Pollinated Marigold Variety

If you have marigold seeds from us, you’re all set; all our flowers are open-pollinated. However, if you purchased seeds somewhere else, you may want to double-check that your flowers are an open-pollinated variety rather than a hybrid.

Hybrids may not produce flowers that resemble what you grew; sometimes, they revert to what one of their two parents looked like. However, if you don’t mind a little surprise variation, you’re always welcome to save seeds from hybrids!

Wait Until Your Marigolds Are Mature

As with any plant, you want to ensure the seeds are fully mature before you harvest them. For marigolds, you want to wait until the petals have dried out and the base of the bloom, the seed pod, has started turning brown. Letting the seed pod get as brown and dry as possible is best. However, in rainy years, you may need to harvest the seed pods while they’re still green on the bottom. The seeds may mold if it’s a rainy year and you wait too long.

Marigold Seed pods (left), seeds (middle), dry petals (right) — Seed pods (left), seeds (middle), dry petals (right)

Remove the Seeds

Next, you want to remove the seeds from the pods. First, pull the petals off. Usually, they come off easily, and you can set them aside for composting. Then, you can split or peel the seed pod open to pull out the seeds. When the pods are dry, this is easy.

Marigold seeds have an odd appearance; they always remind me of porcupine quills, but don’t worry, they’re not sharp! They’re long and thin, almost needle-shaped, with a black or dark gray tip and a white or cream-colored top.

Pick out any leftover pieces of petals and pods as best you can.

Dish of marigold seeds and some seed pods — Dish of dry marigold seeds (left) and unopened seed pods (right)

Dry the Marigold Seeds

After your seeds are clean, it’s time to dry them. They may seem dry already, but they still have moisture, and they may mold in storage without proper drying. Spread the seeds on a plate or towel and let them dry for a couple of weeks.

Label and Store the Seeds

After your seeds are fully dry, you can package them in an airtight container for storage. Keep them somewhere cool and dark. Make sure to label your container with the variety and date.

Follow these steps to save marigold seeds for next year’s garden. In the spring, you can use your seeds to start marigolds indoors for early blooms. Marigolds germinate quickly, so you can also direct sow them. Many folks have found they make excellent companion plants, and you can plant them alongside many vegetables and herbs, including squash, tomatoes, beans, and basil. As flowers mature next season, you can repeat this process to save marigold seed.

Garden Advice

Fall Chores: Divide Perennials

September 28, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

As the weather is cooling off, we’re spending a lot of time pulling in the harvest, saving seeds, and sneaking in a few last-minute fall crops. It’s also an ideal time to divide perennials. Fall’s cooler temperatures and the plants’ natural transition into winter dormancy help to put less stress on your plants.

Why Divide Perennials

One of the main reasons we divide our perennials is to help them thrive. When we divide perennials, we provide more space for the roots to grow. When they’re less crowded, they can absorb more nutrients and water.

Sometimes, we divide perennials when they get out of hand in a particular space. Vigorous plants like Rudbeckia can fill a garden bed and start leaning into pathways and other beds. Dividing them is an excellent way to manage them.

Lastly, dividing perennials means we get more plants! We can share our divisions with friends and neighbors or add them to our gardens. In ornamental gardens, repetition is often a key design element, and dividing perennials is an affordable way to achieve this look. Divisions for medicinal herbs and food crops mean you’ll have larger harvests in the future.

Perennials You Can Divide in Autumn

Not all perennials can be divided, and of those that can, not all of them like to be divided in autumn. Certain perennials, like the fall-blooming chrysanthemums and asters, do best when divided in early spring. These are a few of our favorites to split this season, but we recommend researching what’s best for your plants.

Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susans)
Peonies
Chives
Salvia
Daylilies
Coreopsis
Yarrow
Feverfew
Butterfly Weed
Echinacea (Coneflowers)
Mint
Lemon Balm
Skullcap
Horseradish

It’s also important to remember that dividing your plants will look different depending on the species. Some perennials have traditional roots or fibrous clumps of roots, while others have tubers, rhizomes, or long, tough taproots.

Tools to Divide Perennials

At a minimum, it’s best to have a sharp spade to divide perennials. Other tools that can be helpful include a garden knife, shears, trowel, a 5-gallon bucket or large nursery pot to carry plants, and a tarp to contain soil if you’re working in a pathway or lawn.

How to Divide Perennials

Use your knife or shears to prune stems and foliage about 6 inches above the ground. This helps to decrease moisture loss.

For plants with traditional or fibrous roots, dig up the plant, getting as much of the roots as you can. If it’s a large patch, you may need to dig just sections at a time, using a sharp spade to cut a section. Once your plant is out, you can divide it with a garden knife or spade. Plants with fibrous roots can be very tough to cut.

When dividing plants like horseradish with long taproots, try to dig as much as possible and include decently sized roots in each clump. For example, horseradish roots should be pencil-sized or thicker to support the plant going into winter.

Dividing plants with rhizomes is similar. Dig them up, damaging as little of the rhizome as possible. You’ll often be able to pull the rhizomes apart by hand.

Peonies tend to be fussier than other perennials. While they rarely need dividing, you can split large plants, though the divisions may take two to three years to bloom again. Cut peony roots into sections with at least three eyes.

How to Replant Perennials

Dig a hole 1 1/2 to 2 times its size to give your new perennial the best start. Try to replant your divisions so that the soil is at the same level as it was previously. Peony roots should only be plants about 2 inches below the surface.

Fill in around the roots with a mixture of soil and good-quality finished compost. Pat the soil around the roots gently but firmly. Water your plant deeply and keep up with consistent watering for several weeks, especially if you’re having a dry fall.

If you’re not replanting your perennials immediately, don’t let them dry out! You can keep them for a few days while you decide where to put them or transport them to a friend’s as long as they’re well watered.

Fall isn’t all about the harvest! We’re already dreaming of the summer garden to come. This fall, You can divide perennials to rejuvenate your flowers, share with friends, and get a few more plants growing in your garden. Follow this simple guide to have success dividing your perennials this season.