winter cover crop timing

Hi,

I'm wondering about timing options for sowing a winter cover in central Virginia (7a). Our average first frost is Nov 1, so the time to plant a winter cover would be mid-late September I think. While some of my crops are on their way out or done, others matured slowly this year and are only now hitting their stride (ahem, peppers). So my question is: is it normal to sacrifice some productivity from one's summer garden to sow winter cover? Or are winter cover crops solely used to follow short season plantings? If the latter, do you try to squeeze in a spring cover before transplanting summer crops?

I plan to cut my plants at the base and tarp the residue before sowing the cover crop. When I cut/tarped my bolting low tunnel winter kale/spinach before transplanting out my summer crops, it only took about a week for the residue to pretty much disintegrate. But of course, summer crops are a lot larger--okra, tomatillos, tomatoes, sprawling cuke vines, etc. Can I chop their residue and tarp? Or should I haul them off and properly compost them?

This is my first "real" summer garden, it has been a great season so far. Thanks in advance for any advice!!

Ashley

Welcome to Permies!

I ive in 7a. In my yard the time for cover crops is right now. I used to aim for doing any tilling and planting on Labor Day Weekend, but weather often interferes. I now start two weeks before, and continue planting up to September 15th. I use a lot of brassica (kale, turnips, mustard, etc.) If they are not in the groud by then, they tend to get 2 inches tall and stop growing. Then in spring I have two inch tall plants going to seed everywhere. Not the genetics I want to encourage.

On the crops that are just now coming in, you might try underseeding. The following are spring cover crops and are not my pics,  from here.

Oats emerging under a crop.

After crop is harvested, oats take over the feild.

I have some clover under okra, and some kales under purple hull peas. This is the first year I have done this though.

A good rule of thumb is 10weeks before 1st frost. I would say that Sept 1st is a good time to get all the planting done for your zone/ego-region, but now is just as good as anytime. I wonder what type of cover crop mix you will have.

Heavy Spring Feeder mix:
80% legumes
16% grass/winter rye
3.2% chive/garlic + mint family
0.8% and the rest daikon radish

Decompaction/Mineralization mix:
40% daikon/tillage radish
30% legume
20% grass
10% herbs/misc (garlic/chive + thyme family + dill family, etc)

Onsite Carbon Farming mix:
50% grass
40% legume
5% daikon raddish
5% herbs/misc (garlic/chive + thyme family + dill family, etc)

Thanks guys. It seems like undersowing is the way. I think I missed that boat, the canopy is too full now. Spring it is!

Too late? Nah. But here, life got in the way, I'll be sowing some more in the next two weeks. Maybe you could sow something at the edge of the existing canopy?

Here are some pictures, The okra is sharing space with 8 foot tall lambsquarters, not much sun gets down there, but we have clover seedlings.


And here are kale that was sown a couple weeks ago when full canopy existed.  Now some cowpeas are spent, and viola, my seedlings!


Incidently, I saw my first yellow leaves fall today. That's my fall indicator to get my planting completed!

Thanks for sharing the pics. I'm going to try sowing in the canopy and see what happens, I do see some vines that are on the way out so the timing might work. At any rate, I already bought the seeds (mix of Austrian winter peas, winter wheat, triticale, and small % of a bunch of other stuff) so might as well try!