Most any of the cover crops are easily turned under if you mow them first. Mow, let dry on soil surface for a bit, then till in. I have used several different ones over the years with excellent results - rye, hairy vetch, clovers, even turnips, alfalfa, buckwheat, field peas, etc.

Check out Cover Crops for the Home Garden and review some of the previous discussions of this question linked below for even more suggestions.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Cover crop discussions

You know, I've used winter rye, oats, buckwheat, and vetch as cover crops at various times, all monocultures.

I'm kind of thinking that there are some good advantages to the mixtures I see in some of the catalogs -- the grasses make biomass, the legumes fix nitrogen, etc.

Is there a downside to using a mix of different things as a cover crop? Or, is this maybe the best way to go, the best of both worlds?

If a mix works well and does more things than just one and is easily manageable, I say go for it. I.E. I've always used oats alone. Oats are easy for me to plant, the seed is free, it establishes very well, produces a great deal of OM, is easy to incorporate, mellows the soil very nicely and protects the soil from erosion caused by splashing rain. In addition, it sucks up N from the soil that is present when my crops are done in mid-august and returns the N when tilled in the spring (or at least aids in the breakdown of the straw). So for my requirements, it works very well.

On the other hand, it isn't perennial which requires me to plant every year (work) and leave the soil exposed for about 6 - 8 weeks. In addition, it really doesn't create any N for the garden like a legume would. It also creates a thick (6"+) insulating blanket in the spring that makes early planting pretty much impossible due to the ground being frozen still or too wet.

Michael

I put out winter wheat just because I had easy access to it. Plus it was cheap!

What would work best with raised wood framed beds? I won't be able to mow in the beds. Will have to turn by hand.

Weed eater will mow it. Possible? Then just turn with a spade.

But if these are small raised beds then cover crops may not be the way to go. They are more big-garden oriented. You can accomplish much the same thing by mulching them thickly with organic materials (straw, old hay, composted manures, grass clippings, compost, etc.) and turn it in in the spring?

This is not to say that you can't use cover crops just that they are more difficult to work with in smaller confined spaces.

Dave

I'd have to agree with Digdirt... cover crops are probably not the best way to go for raised beds, especially if the soil will be turned by hand. You can mow or cut the tops, but it will still be difficult to break up the root masses without some form of equipment. Composting is probably the best method for soil enrichment.

There are only 2 plants I might recommend for this situation:

Annual rye grass is fast growing, but not winter hardy; so it will already have begun breaking down in the Spring. You would surface sow it among your plants in late Summer.

Ditto for buckwheat; it grows very quickly, and will mostly decompose by Spring.

It should be noted that either of these can become a weed, if allowed. Since any seed which is buried might come up in successive years, no cultivation of any kind should be done after spreading the seed. The best way is to either broadcast it into existing mulch, or apply a light layer of mulch or compost over it.

For a raised bed whose soil was loosened before the cover crop was planted you could simply cut the cover crop by hand (sickle, etc.), and plant in the stubble as a no-til method, and use the vegetation for a mulch that would be turned under at the end of the season when the sod won't be a problem. You would be missing out on some of the green manure benefit from the cut material in the hshort term, but the dead roots of the cover crop would be providing a great deal of organic matter to the soil.

Back in the day when I had a 10'X10' bed I put leaves on come fall. It made on great compost come late spring, Plus I needed something to do with all those leaves anyway. I just put a bagger on my mower to mulch them and tossed them on the garden. Hope this helps.