Hi! Well, we're outside this week in the Q&A!
At last! Still got cloud cover,
but hopefully we're going to get through before it rains.
And, in the background, there's quite a noisy chipper
on a property nearby, sounds like a big one...
So, you might hear some big grinding sort of noises.
Now, our first question involves cover crop
and it comes from Guy.
People are marketing and selling "cover crop cocktails",
where a mix of species are presented together.
Are there reasons to not use such a mix?
Are there benefits to doing so
easily missed at first glance?
What would you consider as you determine
if a mix is best for your site?
Is there such a thing as a bad mix?
Well, this is less than two weeks old,
and it was all grass,
and I documented this on Facebook.
We came through and slashed all the grass
in between these trees that was struggling,
or some of these trees that was struggling,
and then we rotary hoed it, very shallow,
and then we seeded it and put a fine mulch over it
to get this cover crop up.
Then we inter-planted more trees
to make it a really dense planet.
Basically, it's about rampancy.
This time of year, I've only got cowpea that grows well.
This is it, it's a Vigna,
and it's cheap enough for me to buy.
Still quite expensive, but does such a great job.
Now, we're coming to the end of summer, here in Australia,
so it's only going to grow until about May, or early June,
when the cold weather will kill it
and I'll have to move into a winter mix.
Now, I say a mix because, in winter,
I can get three seeds that work for me, easily,
at the right price and the right rampancy.
I'll keep emphasizing this.
We're looking at agricultural price
so we can throw a lot of seed.
I over-seed to get the cover and control
while I get the perennial system up in this case.
I use the same sort of attitude
when it comes to crops, as well.
In winter, I can buy three, and that is vetch,
field pea, which is usually Mayfield pea or Dunn pea,
and Lupin.
Now, if I can get them all that the right price,
I'll put them all in, because I think a mix,
when they're all rampant and they're all legumes,
is very beneficial...
And it's random but it's in swings.
If one doesn't go so well, the other one takes up the gap...
But they got to be at the right price.
Sometimes, one's too expensive,
or two are too expensive and I only use one.
So, that's my approach.
Here, I really only can afford cowpeas at the right price.
It does the job, I'm not worried
that I haven't got a mix, be nice to have a mix.
If I really wanted to make...
More of an intense job of it, in a crop,
I might put a carbon crop cover in here, as well;
I might plant sorghum and cowpea.
I can show you that in a minute,
when we have a chinampa question...
Because I'm going to go down to chinampas
that were put in not that long ago,
and we've got sorghum and cowpea growing together.
Normally, unless I really wanted a
very, very high production garden
and I want carbon and nitron together,
I'm just going to go legumes for control of the ground,
to get a lot of nitron into the soil,
and that's how I get a lot of leaf material up
with my support species, which are like my tree cover crop.
I've got a really diverse mix here of support species,
mostly legumes, that I can cut
and return to the soil, and they'll re-grow
and I can manage while I get my fruit trees up.
If I'm in a cropping scenario,
I'm not going towards such a perennial system,
I'm going to annual, mostly...
Maybe some perennials, but mostly annual.
I might want carbon and nitron together, but that's all.
If they're doing mixes, just find out what the mix is.
If it's all nitrogen, and they're all rampant enough.
This is the problem.
People might advise you here to use clovers;
they're just not big enough, they're just not fast enough
to keep up with our subtropical weeds.
Make sure you got the rampancy that works for you.
Design that rampancy to work in your favor,
that's the big thing.
Here, I've got sorghum and cowpea, and it's much older...
It's been here all summer,
and it's quite a lot of mass, here.
I've got a seed sorghum here,
and that's high carbon plus I get a seed off it
for the chickens, if I want.
My cowpeas really come up in size.
I've come down here...
This is a chinampa that was put in last August,
and now we're in April, so it's been here a little while.
We've been through a devastating drought...
And, if you can see, it's grown pretty well
even in a drought.