Cover Crop Mixes

12 years ago

Anyone know a good place to get cover crop mixes for the New England area, and what thier results were as far as soil impovements. Thanks in advance. Ive had so much groundhog damage that im just going to covercrop the garden as things (very little of) get harvested. Ive tried traps but them little sob's seem to be to smart for them. So cover cropping is my way of ending the season, and maybe gardening for a few years. Maybe i can get them to leave if I plant nothing they like.

This post was edited by gardenman101 on Tue, Aug 12, 14 at 14:00

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Comments (3)

digdirt2
12 years ago
High Mowing Seeds is a good source I have ordered from in the past. They are in VT.

They carry a peas-oats-vetch mix which is especially recommended for NE as well as individual blends of clovers and winter rye. U of Mass has a great info sheet on which cover crops are recommended for use in NE.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: U Mass - Cover Crops
prairiemoon2 z6b MA
12 years ago
If you are ordering in the spring next time, I bought that mix Peas/Oats/Vetch from FEDCO and have been very happy with it. I have a stand of it growing in a raised vegetable bed right now. Although the point of using this mix is so you get a lot of voluminous green matter to turn in, so they suggest you plant it in the spring and get a lot of bang for your buck. I planted mine the beginning of July though and as much growth as I get I get. I plan to turn it under in the fall.

In the past I've used just Vetch when it was this late in the season. I would plant in August and it would germinate and I'd let it stand over winter and turn it under in early spring. It worked very well for me. Advantages -- it was easy to turn under with a pitch fork in a raised bed and it didn't really come back after that. And could plant fairly quickly after turning it in bc it breaks down quickly.

I would definitely say it has helped the fertility in my beds. As a matter of fact, this year we built new beds and increased the size of the garden x 3 and didn't have enough soil from the old garden to fill all the new beds and had to purchase soil. So two beds had soil from the old garden and three beds had purchased soil. It has been a very noticeable difference and I've been so happy to see my soil perform so well with nothing more than a little alfalfa meal added in the spring before planting and some fish/seaweed emulsion liquid used a few times over the season.

And now I have the three beds with the new soil in them in cover crop for the rest of the season to get a good start on next year.

Sorry to hear about your groundhog problem. They are the worst! Had one one season and that was so frustrating.
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gardenman101
Original Author
12 years ago
thank you both for the quick response, time to order some