Cover crop? Green manure? ????

[jack]

Gidday

I am not sure of what ewe jokers call it but I will soon be harvesting my onion. Yes very late but we have had a real crappy season so far.

What I am wanting to know is:-

Can I grow a cover crop to hoe in between crops of onion. Like from late summer to about mid winter. I am wondering if there is something that can not only keep the soil covered as well as being used to add organic matter to the soil and also if such thing exists, to clean up the ground so I can follow with another crop of onions.

Or am I asking too much.

[Talks With Beagles]

You're asking too much.

I don't know about New Zealand, but in the U.S. a "cover crop" means something you plant after you have harvested your main crop and tilled it under. Then you till the cover crop under before you plant your next regular crop.

I believe what you are talking about is a "companion crop". Companion crops are usually sowed in with some kind of grass for hay or pasture, but the old timers used to sometimes plant row crops that way too. I tried that last season with peas and sweet corn. I thought that the peas would climb the cornstalks, but they didn't, and the corn pretty much shaded them out.

Of course, there are people on this forum who know a lot more about gardening than I do, and maybe one of them will set us both straight.

[trudy]

What about rye grass as a cover crop, it can be turned in once your ready to replant your next crop. Rye grass doesn't like hot weather, so it works good here in our fall/winter. trudy

[jack]

Gidday

Yep that's right I was talkin about a cover crop. Would 4 months running from late summer be long enough and would it help to clean the soil any so that I could grow the same crope successively?

[crazy1]

4 months would be fine Jack. Possibly a little long though, unless you had some cold weather to "stunt" the growth. As to cleaning the soil, I've never heard of any natural way to replant the same crop, year after year. Without adding chemicals I'm not sure how you'd do it.

[jacobtowne]

Jack:
As I understand it, a cover crop may be plowed under as green manure and a soil builder, or not plowed under. In the latter case, the crop is winter killed, the straw is raked off for compost, and the roots remain in the ground.

Annuals like field peas and oats are a good choice for the second option. In the case of a legume such as peas, nitrogen nodules remain on the roots to provide nutrients for the next spring planting. For your purposes, you may wish to sow a mixture of species.

Some ryes are perennials, so must be turned under.

JT

[Talks With Beagles]

Okay, I misunderstood you, Jack. I thought you wanted to plant something between the rows of onions, but in re-reading your post I see that you said "between crops", not "between the rows". I must have been tired when I read it the first time.

Rye is a popular crop for this purpose in our climate, as was stated. It will stay green until the snow covers it, and will quickly regenerate as soon as the snow melts off it. In our locale, we use rye grain rather than rye grass, our local feed store people call it "field rye". To get the maximum benefit, you want to till it under in the spring before it goes to seed. You can mix a little vetch in with it for a legume effect, but the vetch won't amount to much by the time you need to till the rye under.

Oats are also used for green manuring in warmer climates than ours, but oats won't survive one of our winters. I tried following my winter rye crop, which I plant for the deer, with oats last spring. We had a dry year, and this was a dry site, so the oats didn't amount to much, but I tilled them under anyway and planted more rye in late summer. In general, oats are more tolerant of wet and rye is more tolerant of dry.

I think the best way to find out what works in your location would be to talk to some local farmers or check with your local feed and seed store.

[jack]

Gidday

Thank ewe jokers.

Unfortunately, the farmers in this area are too hell bent on following the chemical way. Would you believe that they still burn off their stublle.

I was told by someone ages ago that there was a crop that could be used, I think it was some sorta cash crop, that was supposed to clean up soil by killing off or at least detering all the little bugs and thing or should I say buggers. I caint for the life of me even remember where I heard that let alone what the drop was.

Down here we plant our oinions in the middle of winter, apparently they are supposed to develope a good root mass before spring and then they just spring outa the ground. Or at least that's the theory.

[jack]

Gidday

Hey NZAmish, are you in an area where any cropping is done? or do I remember right in thinkin you are near the big sin city, Auckland?

[Talks With Beagles]

Jack, do you even *have* winter where you live? Around here, if you wanted to plant something in mid-winter, you'd have to dig down through a couple feet of snow and then break the frozen ground with a jack-hammer or something.

Rye or wheat can be planted in late summer or early fall, after another crop has been harvested. If you wanted the grain, you'd have to wait till mid-summer to combine it, but if you are using it for a cover crop, you can till it under in the spring and plant something else. Like I said, you could do the same thing with oats, but not in our climate. People do this to prevent soil erosion and build up some humus in the soil for the next season. I have never heard of anybody using a cover crop to "clean" the soil, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Any time you plant the same crop on the same site year after year you run the risk of fostering some kind of bug or fungus that specializes in that particular crop. You might get away with it for a few years, but it will catch up with you sooner or later. In large scale commercial agriculture, this may be unavoidable because some sites will only profitably produce one or two types of crop. In that case, they resort to pesticides, fungicides, and chemical fertilizers. As a home gardener or hobby farmer you shouldn't have to do this if you don't want to.

I don't know how much tillable land you have, but if you just want to grow a lot of onions and not much else, you could rotate your garden with your lawn. Okay, you won't have a prize winning lawn, but you can have something green that still needs to be mown occasionally. Annual grasses like rye and oats will sprout quickly and cover the ground until something else takes over.

I regenerated about a quarter acre horse pasture for my daughter like that this spring. I mixed about 20 pounds of oats with a few pounds of a perennial grass blend that was recommended for horse pastures. The poop was pretty deep, but I spread a half ton of lime on it and tilled it under. Then I broadcast the seeds and ran the tiller over it one more time. My daughter kept the horse off of it for a couple months, by which time the oats turned brown and went to seed. (Like I said, we had a dry summer.) You could see the green grass trying to grow up under the oats, so I told my daughter to let the horse in there. The horse ate the oats in a couple weeks, we had some rain, and the grass took over.

For a lawn, you probalby don't want to work it up and start over again every year, but every two or three years would work almost as well. Of course, the best way is to leave your lawn in grass and divide your garden up and rotate crops within it, but this is another option you might want to consider.

[nz]

jack said:

Gidday

Hey NZAmish, are you in an area where any cropping is done? or do I remember right in thinkin you are near the big sin city, Auckland?

It's mainly just stock farming round these parts.

P.S: I ain't no Jaffa mate(no offence to any Aucklanders out there)

[jack]

Gidday

Thanks Beagle Talker. A very well answered post. And by the way, our winters here, this year at least, are lasting about 9 or 10 months it seems. We have had 20 degree frosts this year and snow on the ground a couple of times, one of wjhich was for 2 weeks. So not your sorta winter but cool anyway.

[jack]

Gidday

Hey Amish, I didn't think you were farming in Queen Street, perhaps Karangahape Road though. But without giving your exact address, what part of the country. Your questions about the horses and things interest me, that's all.

[nz]

Lets just say I'm rather far far far far away from the big smoke.
I'm in the country.