What's your favorite cover crop for small-scale gardens?

[Red Horse]

I'm looking for cover crop ideas for my zone 6 vegetable garden and I love plants that serve multiple purposes. Right now I'm leaning toward peas, but I'm wondering what the BYC community likes?

 

[HollowOfWisps]

How tall cover crop do you need? Do you want something that is useful as in edible or useful as in good for bees/environment? Do you need the cover crop for spring, summer, fall, winter? Raised beds? How much space?

 

[Red Horse]

Useful in either case! I certainly could use more pollinators in my yard. Height doesn't matter so much because my beds are pretty spread out, so I have room for anything that would most benefit my soil and either give me more snacks or provide them for the animals I'd like to have around. Any season too!

Space is really the only limiting factor because I have 7 8'x4' 10" tall raised beds, but also 2 8'x16' tilled beds that I use for corn and squashes (seperately). So I don't know if that's enough space for grasses/oats things like that to actually get a good harvest.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I would recommend bush beans as a cover crop. You can plant the seeds as close as 2” apart, they do not need to be trellised, they flower for the bees, you can eat the beans and they add nitrogen back into the soil. My favorite to use for a cover crop is Dragon’s Tongue. You can harvest early for a green bean or you can let them dry out for a shelling bean that looks and tastes like a pinto bean. I usually do a smaller early harvest as a green bean and then they will grow even more pods that I let dry out on the plant until the pods start turning white. Then I harvest for my shelling beans. I buy mine in bulk from Johnny’s Seeds.

 

[Red Horse]

I've seen those and they look so cool!!!

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I've seen those and they look so cool!!!

They are a pretty bean and even my kids love the taste as a green bean or as a dried shelling bean.

 

[aimee750]

I use Austrian winter peas or purple top turnip usually. The pea blooms are pretty and both can be used for animal food.

 

[Sally PB]

My favorite to use for a cover crop is Dragon’s Tongue. You can harvest early for a green bean or you can let them dry out for a shelling bean that looks and tastes like a pinto bean. I usually do a smaller early harvest as a green bean and then they will grow even more pods that I let dry out on the plant until the pods start turning white. Then I harvest for my shelling beans. I buy mine in bulk from Johnny’s Seeds.

My best producing bean, ever!

@Red Horse, get different things planted, see what works best for you. And what you find to be the tastiest.

If you're planting for over winter, winter rye did well for me. It was just for cover/soil enrichment, not as a crop. One thing I really appreciated in the spring: One tilling, and it was done. I tried alfalfa, and that stuff does not want to give up! I tilled it twice, and still had stray plants here and there for a couple years.

 

[Red Horse]

Thank you all for these!!! I do love green beans, I eat them raw off the plant. This year I put in some Maxibel and DANG. They were already so big but still really tender like a snap pea and very sweet.

 

[Chris2018]

I'm looking for cover crop ideas for my zone 6 vegetable garden and I love plants that serve multiple purposes. Right now I'm leaning toward peas, but I'm wondering what the BYC community likes?

What are you wanting out of your cover crop?
Do you want it to improve soil texture, attract pollinators and beneficial insects, improve Microlife in the soil, add nutrients back to the soil? Also do you want a hardy or winter kill cover crop?

I dislike using a "monocrop" cover crop, so I plant a mixture of plants to use as a cover crop.
I'll use clovers (White, Strawberry, Crimson, and Medium Red), Sweet Alyssum, Tilling Radish, and Mustard. From time to time, I will add Sunflower seeds to attract not only pollinators but also birds.

Something to keep in mind is if you're using a crop known as a "Nitrogen Fixer" you will either have the correct bacteria in your soil OR you will have to use an inoculant in order to have the benefits of the "Nitrogen Fixer".