Hi I'm Tricia, an organic gardener, I grow organically for a healthy and safe food
supply
for a clean and sustainable environment
for an enjoyable and rewarding experience
We're here with Greg, from Greg's Organics
and he's got an urban farm right here in downtown Grass Valley
his cover crop is ready to get tilled in and worked into the soil. Yes
and I hear your going to have a tomato CSA with how many varieties?
um ten cherries, or twelve cherries and thirty five heirlooms. Awesome
thank you so much for letting us demonstrate
the benefits of cover crops in your field. Anytime.
You want to incorporate your cover crops before it goes to seed and then you want to let it
decompose so that it can benefit the crop that you're gonna play afterward
a good indicator for when to knock down the cover crop is when one half of the crop
is flowering
this allows you to take advantage of maximum biomass
you can also time when you're gonna incorporate the cover crop into the soil
based on when your next crop is going to be planted and you want allow at least
three to six weeks before planting your next crop
it's important to wait because your cover crop will be decomposing
and during this decomposition process you will temporarily lock up some of
the nitrogen in the soil
there's several ways to incorporate your cover crop into the ground you can
cut it and compost it, you can weed-eat it
or mow it and just let it lay there on the ground or you can till it
into the ground. Tilling it in
is the fastest and easiest way to incorporate your cover crops
just roto-till the crops into the ground
the advantages to this method are faster decomposition
and less nitrogen loss into the atmosphere
the disadvantage is that you don't get
the marching effect of leaving the crop on the surface of the soil
so no weed suppression or water conservation while the crop decomposes
another method is to cut it and then take it and compost it
the advantages are that you adding finished nutrient rich compost back into the
field
this is a great option for raised bed cover cropping. The disadvantage is that it's more work
to cut, compost and then add the compost back into the soil
and it can take several months instead of weeks
and finally you can just cut the cover crop down, let it lay there on the
soil surface as a mulch as it decomposes and this will help with water
conservation and weed suppression
the three main methods of cutting down cover crops
are undercutting, mowing and rolling. Undercutting is when you draw a blade
under the soil and you slice the cover crop underneath the soil
for mowing your going to mow down the crop with your lawn mower a weed whacker
or a scythe
this chops the crop up fairly finely and it will decompose fairly quickly
i'm gonna be using this Core weed trimmer
it's battery-powered and that means there's less noise, no fumes and it
works really well
for a weed trimmer or scythe to get nice small pieces that will decompose quickly
you can trim the tops
and then cut at the middle
and then cut right at the ground
you can also roll the crop by going over them with the lawn mower or the
tiller with the blades turned off
bear in mind that rolling doesn't always kill all of the cover crop
rolling and undercutting provide maximum weed suppression since there's so much
biomass lying on top of the soil
acting as a mulch
the disadvantage of this method is that you can loose a little bit of nitrogen into the air
and it may not decompose as quickly as putting it into the soil with the
tiller
if you want your cover crop to decompose a little bit quicker you can spray it with an
inoculant like this field and garden spray
cover copping is the cornerstone of organic gardening and it will help you save
on fertilizers so plant a cover crop and grow organic for life.