How & Why You Should Use Cover Crops in Your Home Garden

Applying a cover crop can be vital to retaining soil quality and ensuring fewer weeds, and there is no wrong time to use them!

Cover crops are an important part of farms and home gardens. Even if you don’t have acreage or a garden but just one raised bed, you might want to consider cover cropping because it is the best way to build soil and retain soil quality.

That’s why I’ve got some big bags of organic cover crop seed mix for the farm. (You can buy some online at MIgardener.com!) Let’s discuss why a cover crop is good for your garden, how different cover crops rate, and how to choose the best cover crop for your use.

We’ve Got This Covered

If you are looking for professional gardening advice, we’ve got it covered. Here at MIgardener, my goal is to share my expertise and teach the “how-tos” of organic gardening through weekly videos on the MIgardener YouTube channel, helpful tutorials, and top-quality blog posts. 

When you are done learning about soil-saving superstars (i.e., cover crops), you may enjoy learning about types of seeds (heirloom, hybrid, GMO), soil amendments, using organic pesticides and fungicides, how to get rid of wasps in the garden, or even why tomatoes split.

What Are Cover Crops

A cover crop is any crop grown as a living mulch to cover and protect bare soil. It is typically used for seasonal ground cover and intentionally not harvested.

They can be left to die over winter, incorporated into the soil before planting, or you can even grow perennial cover crops. Many farmers choose specific crops that will “fix” nitrogen in the soil.  

Benefits of Growing A Living Mulch

Using cover crops as a living mulch has many advantages. (Read this blog post to learn more about mulching and different types of mulch!)

Cover cropping improves soil fertility by building biomass, enhancing soil structure, and benefiting soil mycology. It also prevents topsoil erosion and solarization, and benefits pollinators and wildlife. Some crops even return vital nutrients to the soil!

Planting a cover crop can dramatically cut down on the amount of weed pressure that you have. If you do not fill the void with some type of crop, Mother Nature will do it for you—that’s how you end up with weeds.

When To Use Cover Cropping

Use cover cropping whenever you have bare soil that will not be planted soon, not just in the fall! Also, use it when other types of mulch, like wood mulch, would be impractical or cost-prohibitive.

On our farm, for instance, we needed a cover crop because we had open, bare soil between the seed plot rows and between the apple trees in our orchard. That open soil had nothing to keep down weeds or reduce soil degradation. 

The apple tree rows are basically a no-dig garden covered in wood mulch. But in between our tree rows, there is enough space to drive a tractor. It would take an absurd amount of wood mulch to cover that area!

That’s where cover cropping comes in!

Types of Cover Crops

Choosing a cover crop should be done on a case-by-case basis, not as a one-size-fits-all solution. There are a few popular cover crops and some less common crops that you should consider based on your garden and needs:

• White Dutch Clover - A nutrient-rich cover crop that bees will love. It is as tasty as it is beneficial! Plant it after your main crops are done for the season, or grow it to harvest and enjoy its sweet, vanilla-like flavor.

• Field Peas - These cold-hardy plants produce substantial biomass, replenish nitrogen, suppress weeds, and are edible.

• Fava Beans - Fava Beans improve soil health by fixing nitrogen. They are easy to grow and harvest, and are a favorite among gardeners seeking a productive, versatile, and delicious crop.

• Hard Red Winter Wheat - Winter wheat is easy to grow and lessens erosion. 

• Triticale - A must-have for the modern homesteader for many reasons! Triticale has a strong, deep root system that improves soil structure.

• Collard Greens - These plants have deep taproots that break up soil and reduce soil compaction.

• Black Chia - Chia can rapidly form a dense ground cover that suppresses weeds.

• Daikon Radish - This root crop grows deep in the ground to loosen and amend the soil texture without tilling. It will help add nitrogen to the soil as it grows, so you don't have to!

• Hairy Vetch - Hairy vetch is known to fix significant amounts of nitrogen in the soil, provide abundant organic matter and improve soil structure and health.

• Yellow Mustard—Yellow mustard is used as a cover crop because of its rapid growth and deep taproots, which draw up nutrients, meaning you may not need to fertilize your main crop as much. Because of its biofumigant properties, it may also suppress soilborne diseases and pests.

• Garbanzo Beans - These plants fix nitrogen into the soil, break up compaction, and add biomass if left to decompose.

• Cover Crop Seed Mix - Many of the crops listed above are in the MIgardener cover crop mix! It is a powerful blend of legumes, hardy grains, radishes, and mustards designed to restore and enrich garden soil after a busy growing season.

• Rye Grass - Any grass in the rye family contains a natural weed suppressant known as a pre-emergent in the roots. You may want to choose winter rye (which is not perennial), or perennial rye grass (a hardy perennial not recommended for gardens).

Whether you choose a high-biomass crop, legume family nitrogen-fixer, a root crop, or a seed blend, make sure you do your research to find what is best for your use case. (Watch the video at the beginning of this blog post for even more details on specific crops!)

When purchasing cover crop seeds, ensure you source them from a reputable supplier! Cheaper options may contain weed seeds and other unwanted substances.