Sequential Cover Cropping

The home that I dwell in, is in a forested part of our homestead. I really enjoy living in the forest. It is much cooler in the summer, and changes in so many ways throughout the seasons. Because I do a lot of foraging, I am able to step outside my door and pick a salad, especially in the spring. The forest in the spring is totally different, than it is during the summer. In the spring, there are many species of wild flowers, and other understory plants, that live their perennial life cycle for the most part, before the large deciduous trees are fully leafed out. This sequential transition, has always stuck out to me. The forest is very self sustaining, getting better with each season. No one goes there and fertilizes these plants, yet they are all healthy and strong. In fact most wild edibles are more mineral dense than the majority of the plants growing in your garden. No one is rotating their positions, no they grow in the same place, season after season, and no pest and diseases end up wiping them out.

I have thought much about this natural fertility cycle over the years. But this sequential transition from understory growth thriving, then going dormant as the larger trees begin to leaf out, has been of special interest. When those understory plants are photosynthesizing, they are feeding extra root exudates to the soil biology. As the understory plants begin to go dormant, and their leaves and extra roots are shed, the biology begins to consume them, and turn them into humus. As this is happening, the larger deciduous trees are beginning to leaf out, and start to feed the soil life with their root exudates. But the biology is making important minerals available to the trees, as they work on decomposing the understory plants shed parts. So this sequential cycle, is an important part of the fertility cycle of the forest.

My garden is certainly not a forest, I realize that. But is there a way that I could use a similar approach in the garden, to keep my fertility cycle humming steady, supplying what the biology needs and the plants? I think there is, and I have been happy with the results, I have been seeing in the garden.

I have my Quilt Garden laid out so that half of the squares will be cover crop each season. Half of those cover crop plots will be spring cover crop, the other half will be summer cover crop. I have it laid out so that it is in a checker board type pattern. All of my perennial and annual crop plots will be in very close proximity to both a spring and summer cover crop plot. In May I will sow all the spring cover crop plots. Come summer, I begin to crimp down and mulch over the spring plots, and sow seed in the summer plots. Just as the spring plots are starting to decompose, the summer plots are beginning to grow lush. This transition, is providing a great diversity of substances, to the soil food web that is symbiotically relating to the crops in my garden. Next year my annual crops will shift to those cover crop plots, and cover crops will shift to their locations.

I will do another post soon discussing some of the special things I do when I crimp and mulch my lush cover crops to feed what I refer to as my "soil livestock" (microbes).