Prepping Your Garden for Winter: All about Cover Crops

Winter is right around the corner, so now is the time to start your cover crops. What is a cover crop, how do you choose one for your garden, and how do you plant a cover crop? We’re so glad that you asked.

What is a cover crop?

Gardeners grow a cover crop to cover the soil, but they do not grow it for harvesting purposes. Rather, cover crops benefit other plants, ward off pests, and add nutrients and biomass to soil.

Benefits of Cover Crops

Cover crops have numerous benefits, including:

• suppressing weeds,

• attracting pollinators and giving them shelter during the winter,

• increasing soil moisture,

• increasing nutrients in the soil,

• reducing erosion, and

• educing soil compaction.

A cover crop can also be a companion plant, or “plant buddy,” by planting it alongside vegetable-bearing plants. Different cover crops have various benefits for other plants, such as providing shade, structural support, and protection from pests. They can also attract pollinators and repel unwanted garden visitors.

Another bonus of cover crops is that they require little-to-no maintenance during the winter.  You just let the winter temperatures kill them (winterkill), and you can turn them into soil to create “green manure” for your garden.

Types of cover crops

There are several types of cover crops from which you can choose.  However, each cover crop has a specific purpose in a garden.  So, let your purpose guide your selection.  Here are some cover crop options and their unique benefits for gardens. Keep in mind that you can mix plants to obtain the ideal balance of cover crops in your garden.

Grasses

Some popular grass cover crops are winter wheat, buckwheat, rye, barley, and oats.  Grasses are high in nitrogen, and they add a lot of organic matter to soil.  They are great for weed control as well.

Legumes

Some legume cover crops include peas, beans, vetch, alfalfa, and clover.  Legume cover crops release nitrogen faster into the soil than grasses, but they don't control weeds as well as do grass cover crops.

Legumes also draw in deer, which can be good or bad depending upon how you feel about deer.

Non-legume Broadleaves

Non-legume broadleaves include forbes, flax, and vetch. They break down more slowly than legumes, and they have a higher carbon content.  Non-legume broadleaves are also great for reducing nitrogen from leaching out of the soil.

Brassicas

Some brassica cover crops include turnips, radishes, spinach, kale, and canola (rapeseed).  These are particularly good for breaking up compacted soil, providing biomass for a garden, and suppressing weeds.  Brassicas are also natural pesticides because they release a chemical that can be toxic to pests and soilborne pathogens.

Brassicas grow quickly, but they may smell like rotten eggs as they decompose.

When to plant cover crops

The best time to plant cover crops in Ohio is from August to late September.  They need to be planted at least four weeks prior to the first frost, because the plants need to have their roots established for them to be effective cover crops during the winter.

You can also sow cover crops in the early spring to improve the soil in preparation for planting summer vegetables.  Furthermore, you can plant cover crops alongside vegetable-bearing plants to serve as companion plants.

How to Plant Cover Crops

Make sure that your soil is loose enough to accept seeds.  If it is too hard, then till or rake the soil to increase the chance of seed germination.  You need at least six inches of loose soil for the seeds to take.

Then, plant cover crops in rows or by broadcasting them out into your garden (i.e., tossing them out into your garden).  Water them lightly to encourage germination.

What to Do with Your Cover Crops

If you plant them during the fall, then you can winterkill the cover crops. 

If you plant a cover crop in spring or summer as a companion plant, then let it grow until it serves your purpose or until half of the cover crop flowers.  Then, mow or pull the plants from the soil. You can also smother the plants with cardboard if you don’t have cutting supplies available.

Do not allow the plants to go to seed as then they may become unwanted weeds.

After you have cut down the plants, allow them to sit and decompose for three to six weeks.  You can then turn the plants into traditional compost if you wish. 

If you’d like the easy way for using cover crops (which is just fine if you ask us), then let them decompose for a few weeks and simply till the cover crop into the soil to create “green manure.”

How do you choose the best cover crop for your garden?

Choose a cover crop based on your budget, timeline, past plants, and future planting goals.  If you’d like some guidance, then give us a call or stop by our Timbuk Farms Garden Center and we’ll help you choose the right cover crop for your garden. We’re a family-owned business, we grow everything locally, and we have decades of knowledge. We can’t wait to help you, so come on by!