Do you have to pull them out, or does it die, rot and leave a 3-foot hole?

lazygardens,

They are killed by temps in the teens. Then they rot and leave the root cavity. They move nutrients up from deep in the soil profile.

When they rot, they smell like natural gas odorant.

I planted mine much more densely than that. Too densely, much too densely.

Next year I won't plant so densely, or I'll thin more firmly.

Interesting ... doesn't get cold enough here to kill them, but it's always nice to know about things.

mulberryknob,

I planted about 3/4 acre. Some of mine are too close also. I will broadcast the seed differently next year.

At the top right there is an area planted way too dense.

Buckwheat is a summer cover crop, planted for summer then turned under when flowering begins.

My favorite cover crop is the cool-season weed, henbit. It already is sprouting in any area where the mulch has thinned out a bit.

Y'all can laugh, but it reseeds itself, blooms as early as December here, provides flowers for bees and butterflies and other flying creatures at a time when not much else is in bloom, but is easy to yank out of the ground at planting time. I try to leave some henbit in bloom in the yard and garden for as long as I can in spring because it is a swallowtail butterfly magnet.

I didn't plant an official cover crop anywhere this fall since we'll be digging out raised beds to line them with hardware cloth to exclude the voles, but I do get lots of volunteer plants that reseed annually from cool-season herbs and from winter rye grass we planted years ago. Some years we even get volunteer kale, lettuce and spinach in areas where I let them go to seed the previous year or the previous cool season.

Your cover crops look great!

I found a lone bag of daikon radish seed at Stilly Ag. Nabbed that baby. But it was late in the season. I did seed a few and they're popping up.

I planted some giant mustard. BOY does it love it here. You were right!

The kale is flourishing. The cauliflower never formed but it's coming back and the rabbits enjoy the leaves.

A few of the Austrian peas are coming up. I need to sow some more of those.

Bon,

Next year i will try to find edible radishes. The variety I bought this year is not edible for humans. I bought at Stillwater Agri-Center also.

I'm glad you have good food to eat this Fall. Have you made some kale chips? Some of the folks in this area love them.

I think I will include buckwheat in my cover crop next September. I planted my Fall mix while it was still very warm. Buckwheat would have grown very well and quickly. It would have given me more biomass.

Johnny, I grew icicle radishes this year. They grew in raised beds, with weed cloth in the bottom, so they couldn't grow as deeply as they wanted. I grew them as a companion plant and let them go to seed. Over the summer they grew to be 4 to 6 inches in diameter. Some were 6 feet tall. They are edible when picked young and the green seed pods are good added to stirfry.

Amy,

Thanks a lot. I just sent an email about that very subject to a prominent gardening publication.

I will start a new Fall cover crop mix list with your recommendation.

Here is the email I just sent...

Hello Susan,

I have just read Charlie NardozziâÂÂs âÂÂFall Cover Cropâ article. In that article, he mentioned Edible Landscaping.

It started the gears turning in my head.

We have just started cultivating a new three acre garden for our local food bank. We currently have a Fall cover crop planted there. It consists of cereal rye, hairy vetch and tillage radish. All three members of our cover crop were selected to perform specific roles in the new garden. See attached pix.

It just occurred to me how perfect it would be if we could grow an edible cover crop next year. One that would build the soil AND feed hungry people.

Here is our current plan for next spring. Potatoes, starting in February, corn supporting pole beans starting in May, other greens, okra and squash starting in April/May.

We get to grow at least two crops each year. We had a very productive crop of purplehull peas this year. They love high heat, donâÂÂt require good soil or much water and produce good tasting and nutritious food. Also, the leaves are more nutritious than the peas (beans).

Please point us to a good Fall cover crop mix that is also mostly edible.

Ok, I have heard of jelly from the hulls of purple hull peas, but not eating the leaves. Do you use them like green pea sprouts?

Amy,

Here is just one link. There are many more.
http://africanaromatics.com/cooking-with-vegetable-leaves/

I am interested in nutrient dense food for our food bank. I hope to come up with a veggie stew recipe that folks around here will like. I am thinking okra, cowpeas, cowpea leaves, onion and???
Squash?
I want to focus mainly on plants that truly enjoy growing here. Maybe the stew can be dehydrated, frozen or canned.

This post was edited by johnnycoleman on Sun, Nov 2, 14 at 16:47

Very interesting. I had recently read that carrot leaves were edible, I knew about sweet potato, but never considered pumpkin. My green bean leaves were like velcro, don't know if I would like the texture. But broccoli leaves are supposed to be the new kale. ;)

Amy,

I have been experimenting with my Grandmother's pressure cooker. I wonder if that would convert tough leaves to a better texture.

I made a brisket last week in the pressure cooker. It only had to cook for one hour. It turned out great. I put the brisket in a stainless steel bowl that fits inside the cooker. Easy to clean up.

Almost any cool-season crop can be used as a cover crop....kale, collards, the more cold-hardy lettuces, peas and fava beans are a few that come to mind. With peas Including Austrian Winter Peas, you can harvest the tendrils and growing shoots and add them to salads in winter. You have to stop early enough to let them go ahead and make peas eventually. Fava beans are less commonly grown here, but can be grown as a cover crop. You can harvest the beans in late winter or early spring and then plow under the rest of the plant and let them decompose for a couple of weeks before planting. A lot of the less well-known winter greens can be sown closely together as a cover crop, and occasionally harvested as a cut-and-come-again plant. Among those greens? Winter lettuce mixes, kale, spinach, endive, mustard, Japanese spinach, miner's lettuce (Claytonia), arugula (included the less-refined wild arugula), Creasy Greens, Garden Cress, Upland Cress, winter radishes, dandelions or Italian dandelions, corn salad (mache'), turnips, beets and radishes. I'm sure there's more. I use rattail radishes for the pods, like Amy mentioned with the icicle radishes.

Some seed companies have edible winter cover crop mixes. Peaceful Valley Farm Supply is one that I can think of. I'll link theirs. You likely could find bulk seed for veggies that can be used as winter cover crops at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Bountiful Gardens, Peaceful Valley Farm Supply and Territorial Seeds. I also like all the Wild Garden seed mixes, but cannot remember their exact name. When I think of it, I'll come back and link it.

Depending on how cold your nights get, you may have your edible winter cover crops frozen back to the ground on a very cold night. I've had that happen with beds I left uncovered when I knew the overnight low was going to drop below 10 degrees. Thus, when I have winter crops growing, I tend to cover them up on nights when the forecast shows we are dropping into the single digits. Often, even if they freeze, they regrow, but I hate to let them freeze to begin with. I'm in zone 7B but in a very low-lying microclimate that often goes 5-10 degrees lower than forecast, and on one horrible spring night, we went 18 degrees lower than forecast. That explains the piles of frost blanket type floating row cover stacked up in the barn.

Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Edible Cover Crop Seed Mix

Dawn,
Thanks again. My new Fall cover crop mix has icicle radishes (to loosen the soil) and fava beans (to add nitrogen). Now I need a couple of edible plants that will add a lot of biomass.

One thing I have to keep in mind is seed cost. Next year we may be planting more than two acres.
This article builds on your note. I have saved a copy.
http://www.leafforlife.org/assets/downloads/Ch12-21stCentGreens.pdf

This post was edited by johnnycoleman on Sun, Nov 2, 14 at 22:04

Bon,

Are you eating the Austrian pea leaves? I need to learn how palatable they are. Also, I need to learn if they will fit in an Okie diet.

I just read a rather long article on edible cover crops that discussed those leaves.
http://www.leafforlife.org/assets/downloads/Ch12-21stCentGreens.pdf

Johnnycoleman, It is a very good thing that you are trying to do to help people feed themselves. There are so many people today that by no fault of their own are having a hard time. I would like to hope people would come together and plant community gardens but in some places there is no one to show them how. So many people today have never planted a seed of any kind and have no idea of where food comes from.

Auther,
If you learn of an area with folks who want help, please let me know. It would be my pleasure to help them start a community garden.

I think there is enough knowledge on this forum to address the knowledge issue and I can still climb into my tractor seat.

Johnny, not yet. I will let you know. I've read what Dawn wrote that the shoots and leaves when young taste just like regular peas. I guess the more mature plants are too tough. Suspect they'd need to be to survive winter. Dude as Stilly Ag said they'll take off in early spring.

Bon,

I read something about boiling them before sauteing. I'll try some different ideas next year.

I read an interesting article about leaf concentrate last evening. This is just one link of many.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8lomLWvbgdwC&pg=PA348&lpg=PA348&dq=leaf+concentrating+whey&source=bl&ots=8fSTEtGUmp&sig=zyxxA5ST4TFgBnt_XfsXXHWioBU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bGBZVPXtHor4igLOyYDYBg&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=leaf%20concentrating%20whey&f=false

What a jewel of a book! I found a downloadable .pdf. I must read this one. Now that the ground is wet, I'll go out and bury some more peas. I'll nab some tender shoots and try them.

Here is another interesting film on cover cropping.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Science of Soil Health: Precision Cover Cropping

soonergrandmom,

Yes, that video supports many articles I have read. I am convinced we should always keep something growing in our soil.

I am trying to work out a good crop rotation plan, for my gardens, that includes edible cover crops. I want to produce as much food as possible while caring for the soil.

I am not growing a cover crop in my garden, but if I were a farmer I would certainly do that. I think that the ground always needs to be covered with something that is growing or something that has grown. In my case, I have an abundance of leaves. I live in an area with many large trees and most people collect the leaves and burn them. I have two neighbors that share a large leaf collection device that is about 4 feet square which they pull with a lawn tractor. They live about a block from me and love to bring the leaves to me, and I love to get them. They can drive to my yard and dump them in about 5 minutes, but it takes two hours for each load if they burn them and we all have to breath that awful smelling smoke. It's a win-win for them to bring them to me. I use them for both compost and mulch.

I have been gone for the past two summers so my garden is in sad shape and I have a lot of work to do, but I have a small chicken flock, lots of leaves, and a cheap source for additional compost if I want it, so I have all I need in the way of nutrient. Some years I have 8 inches of leaves over my entire garden. In Spring I just pull them back and plant, then when the plants are large enough I push the leaves back on for mulch. I have to do the leaf thing this year, but I am thinking that I may do part in a cover crop next year just to see the difference. My soil is in great shape, but I fight bermuda grass, Virginia Creeper, poke, ragweed, etc. etc. etc. So it isn't that things don't grow, it is that everything grows. LOL

I have tried bare ground, straw, and leaves, and leaves over cardboard work best in my garden. It rains a lot in northeastern Oklahoma and slugs, squash borers, and bugs loved the damp straw. Sometimes we have a few dry months in the summer but normally we do not. It takes a lot of work in the Fall to clear the garden and do the leaf thing, but is very easy when Spring comes. I have only done about a third of my garden so far, and it is going to be too cold for a couple of weeks to finish it. Our high temp tomorrow is 33, so I won't be out there. LOL