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Garden Advice

Cover Crops for Great Green Manure, Mulch, and More

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By Ira Wallace

Warm weather and late April rains have our fall-planted crimson clover, winter rye, and Austrian winter peas growing like weeds and just starting to bloom.  As an edible bonus, the winter peas gave an abundance of sweet pea shoots to add to salads all winter and spring. The bright red flowers of crimson clover provide much-needed pollen and nectar for pollinators and other beneficial insects in spring.

To select the best cover crops for your garden, consider which functions are your priorities, the time of year, and how long the cover crop will be in the ground. Cover crops are important tools all year for filling in gaps between crops while also preventing soil erosion, suppressing weeds, providing habitat for pollinators, and improving fertility. Some even provide an edible bonus, for you and for pollinators. Here are some cover crop favorites in the Southeast.

Winter Nitrogen Fixers – soil fertility out of thin air.

  • red-Clover-2-GryphonClover (crimson, white, and red) – Sow clover six to eight weeks before your average first frost date. Clovers fix nitrogen in the soil and thus boost nitrogen for next spring’s garden. Mow one or two times when about half of the crop is flowering. Allow the residue to decompose for at least two weeks before planting vegetables.
  • Hairy Vetch– Sow hairy vetch six to eight weeks before the average first frost date. This vine-like, vigorously-growing, cold-tolerant, winter-hardy, annual legume adds nitrogen and builds soil organic matter. Hairy vetch grows well in cereal grain mixtures and is an excellent spring weed suppressor.
  • Pea shoot and Brassica Flower xaladWinter Peas (Austrian)– Sow winter peas four to six weeks before the average first frost date. Sometimes called “black pea” and “field pea”, this is a cool-season, annual legume with good nitrogen-fixing capabilities. Usually planted with rye, oats, or barley to reduce the chance of winter kill. Cut and turn under at full bloom for maximum nitrogen.

Winter Soil Builders and Subsoil Looseners – for the surface or deeper down.

  • Winter Rye (Cereal Rye) –
    Sow winter rye six weeks before the average first frost date and up to two weeks after. A cold-hardy crop, winter rye will grow well into the spring. Winter Rye increases soil organic matter as it decomposes. Mow one to two times when at least 12 inches tall, or when half of the crop has immature seed heads. Allow residue to decompose for at least two weeks before planting vegetables.
  • Oats – Sow oats eight to ten weeks before the average first frost date. Oats are killed by the hard frosts. They form a winter surface mulch, preventing erosion and increasing soil organic matter as they decay.

Edible Cover Crops

Traditional gardeners in the Southeast plant a big bed of winter greens (turnips,  mustards, kale, and collards) to keep the garden covered and provide fresh eating until spring.  Plant this beautiful edible greens cover crop in August or September to build organic matter and provide healthy meals all winter long. Try a mixture of the old Southern favorites and contemporary choices like Seven Top turnip, Lacinato kale, Red Russian kale, Southern Giant Curled mustard greens, and Tatsoi.

If you are in the upper South or in the mountains, cover your winter greens with row cover or plant in a cold frame for winter harvests. Left uncovered in cold winters, the leaves will be too damaged for good eating, but you’ll have fresh new growth in early spring if winter lows aren’t too bad.

For more reason to plant cover crops read our Cover Cropping for Unpredictable Weather

 

Warm Season cover crops and filling in the summer gaps

  • Sorghum-Sudan Grass hybrid – Plant in spring and summer, beginning after the soil has warmed and up until six weeks before first frost. This hybrid is unrivaled for adding organic matter to worn-out soils. These tall, fast-growing, heat-loving summer annual grasses can smother weeds, suppress some nematode species, and penetrate compacted subsoil.

 

  • pink-eye-purple-hull-webSoybeans (Edamame) and Southern Peas (Cowpeas) –
    Plant in early summer through mid-summer, between spring and fall crops. Mow before pods have formed or when pods are still green and have not matured. These legume family plants can fix nitrogen for an added bonus.
  • buckwheat-webBuckwheat –
    Plant from spring through early fall when the ground will be open 5 weeks or more. Buckwheat establishes quickly, suppresses weeds and attracts pollinators. Mow one to two times when half the crop is in flower and before hard seeds have formed. Will be killed by frost.

Although fall through winter is the most common time when gardeners grow cover crops, savvy gardeners include summer cover crops in their garden plans. No matter which cover crops you choose or when you fit it in your garden rotation, cover crops allow you to grow your own nitrogen and organic matter in place.

When to Mow or Turn Under Cover Crops

A lot of factors go into determining the best time to turn under or at least cut down your winter cover crop. To get the most biomass, wait until half of the cover crop is in flower but make sure to get it cut down and incorporated before it goes to seed. Some freshly cut cover crops like winter rye inhibit seed germination for the following crop. If you are planning to direct seed allow 2 to 4 weeks for your cover crop to decompose before planting. This same property can be an advantage in weed suppression if the cover crop is just crimped or rolled and left as a mulch for transplanted tomatoes.

Another factor to consider is when you want to plant the next crop. For early spring plantings you may need to cut and turn in your cover crops well before flowering and allow a longer time (maybe 3 to 6 weeks) for the organic matter to decompose before planting. You can speed up decomposition of the cover crop 1 or 2 weeks by sprinkling in some mature compost or applying compost tea to add beneficial soil organisms before turning it under.

For most home gardens you can cut your cover crop with a hand sickle or scythe and add it to your compost. This leaves the considerable roots to add organic matter and aerate the soil. You can also weed-eat it or mow it and just let it lay there on the ground as mulch or till it in.  For the home gardener, Roto-tilling  is the fastest and easiest way to incorporate your cover crops, but you can also spade in your crop residues the old fashioned way. Digging in your covers crops aids in faster decomposition and less nitrogen loss into the atmosphere.

 

Garden Advice

Dinosaurs, Bloomsdale, and the Mortgage Lifter

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What do a kale, a spinach, and a mortgage lifter tomato have in common? They are some of the best sellers of all the varieties offered by Southern Exposure. Each one has a story and reasons you should consider adding it to your garden.

Many factors go into breeding a great spinach. You want a plant which is disease-resistant and if you live in a temperate zone like we do, you want something which can handle the colder nights. We strive to find varieties which have both nutritional and health advantages and are also tasty to eat. The Organic Seed Alliance (OSA), working with various organic farmers, seem to have succeeded in meeting all these criteria with the Abundant Bloomsdale Spinach.

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Abundant Bloomsdale is a cross between the open-pollinated Winter Bloomsdale Spinach and Evergreen Spinach. As the name suggests, the tasty Winter Bloomsdale is hardy in cold weather and the Evergreen is resistant to multiple diseases. Having originated from the OSA breeding project in the Pacific Northwest, this variety performs well in the mid-Atlantic and is a most welcome and popular addition to our line.

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You can use ours, if we can use yours

Southern Exposure wants to credit and support this type of selective breeding program, so we contribute 10% of all the revenue from bolt resistant Abundant Bloomsdale to OSA’s ‘open source’ breeding program. This program allow gardeners to use these plants in any way they like, including breeding projects, as long as they agree not to restrict others’ use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means.

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What is in a name? Lacinato Kale has many, we also call it ‘dinosaur’ on the seed packet label because of the bumpy leaves which some think resemble what dinosaur skin might have looked like. There are many other names you might hear it go by including: Tuscan kale, Tuscan cabbage, Nero di Toscana, Italian kale, black kale, flat back cabbage, palm tree kale, or black Tuscan palm.

In 1777, Thomas Jefferson recorded his success with Lacinato at his famous Monticello estate at Monticello (the venue for the Heritage Harvest Festival, held this year on 10 Sept.) On the longer history of this plant Seed Savers Exchange tells us, “These curly leafed cabbages that were grown in ancient Greece are thought to be the ancestors of kale plants. By the Middle Ages kale was one of the most common green vegetables in Europe.”

The list of advantages for Lacinato Kale is quite long and spans the spectrum of desirable characteristics for a food plant. One advantage is that it grows well in almost every region of the US. It is a cold-hardy vegetable, which should be planted 3-5 weeks before the last frost, and the leaves sweeten after they have been frost kissed. It is hardy in very hot climates as well.

Kale generally reduces cancer risks for bladder, breast, colon, ovary, and prostate. Kale also provides support for our detoxification systems. Steam Lacinato kale to get at its cholesterol-lowering benefits. Lacinato is rich in at least 45 different flavonoids, which have both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits.

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Black, Dinosaur, Tuscan – a kale with many names.

Lacinato is a pretty plant with unusual thick dark blue-green verging on black leaves which have a rare bumpy texture. This variety is famous for being an important part of the Tuscan cuisine, especially soups and stews. Because of its slightly bitter and earth taste, this so-called “Black Kale” is the darling of the culinary world.

It is no surprise this is the single best selling variety at Southern Exposure, followed closely by some good old fashioned collards, Green Glaze and Georgia Green. We wonder if some of the newly rediscovered Blue and Curly collards will inch into the top rankings next year. Make sure you are signed up for our 2017 catalog to be among the first to try some varieties described in ‘Collards: A Southern Tradition from Seed to Table,’ a new book by Ed Davis and John Morgan.

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One of the most humorous names in our catalog has an especially interesting story. Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter tomato is not known for being pretty, but it is both big and flavorful. This stabilized open-pollinated family heirloom tomato comes with this unusual and disputed history.

The story has it that M.C. “Radiator Charlie” Byles was a capable and colorful guy. Without formal education Radiator Charlie would become a pilot, a wrestler, and a mechanic who strategically located his shop at the bottom of a large hill where trucks often overheated and needed his assistance.

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One of the few pictures or Radiator Charlie

But the great depression hit Radiator Charlie, as it did most of the country in the early 1930s, and he was looking at losing his house because he could not pay the bills. Radiator Charlie had no experience breeding or growing plants, but decided he would try to come up with a larger meaty tomato that families could grow to feed themselves.

He looked for tomatoes regionally available and started with four large fruiting varieties: German Johnson, Beefsteak, an unknown Italian variety, and an unknown English variety. Using a baby ear syringe, he carefully hand pollinated these varieties for 6 years, choosing the best year after year. He sold the seedlings of this very large, flavorful, and popular tomato for $1 each for another 6 years and paid off most of his $6000 mortgage.

Sep2014 (767) Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter

Commonly, people wonder why supermarket tomatoes don’t have the same great taste that these heirloom tomatoes do. The answer lies in the goals of the breeder. Supermarket tomatoes are bred for uniformity in size, bright red color, and tough skins which allow them to withstand being shipped thousands of miles to your neighborhood store. Flavor is not a priority. In contrast, Radiator Charlie is a pink tomato bred principally for its large size, reliability, and flavor. It is not uniform in color and is not designed for long haul shipping, something you don’t need when getting food from your garden to your kitchen.