How to choose best cover crop ... to win a fight with a yard full of Star of Bethlehem?

Hi permies!  I'm working on converting my back and front yards to a very ambitious and exciting wonderland of edible and medicinal goodness (yay!)...this first garden might be a total failure, but I'm so darned excited I don't care and am looking forward to all the lessons therein!   In the backyard, there is hardly any grass as it is overgrown with henbit on half the yard (lovely...although I'd like to understand what that should be telling me about my soil) and the other half is star of bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) - it is literally one or the other.  On the edges, there are also some viney things (i think wintercreeper and winter honeysuckle) and bushy things (waxyleaf privet is my best guess from an app) ...and some ivy-leaved speedwell (also thanks to an app), and two japanese quince randomly in the middle.  As I now understand the star of bethlehem is toxic to people and pets (I have dogs and am getting chickens soon), I've been doing a fair bit of research to figure out the best way to eliminate it.  I've been digging it up, which i know is probably an exercise in futility, seeing how impossible it is to get all of the bulbs...but at least for now, that process is quite enjoyable as I'm really getting to know the soil in the various areas and all the critters therein.   Today, while digging, I started wondering if there was a method to choosing cover crops to out-compete SPECIFIC things?  Since these are deep bulbs, should I be thinking about legumes or something with a deeper root more than clover or something?  Does that matter?  Is this a dumb question? Are there resources to help me learn/understand when/why/where to select the various cover crops?  Are there other methods to help me get rid of this stuff? I just got 25 bales of organic straw...so that is one resource, but it is definitely windy for that to be covering the entire yard.  Anyway, thank you for all your great suggestions and wisdom!  I LOVE permie-land!

A thick layer of woodchips will take care of that,when they pop through cut them down. In the most relentless places dump grass cutting on top. Every week, no excuses, it's a kill or be killed year...
If no woodchips a black plastic tarp.

Winterrye maybe after the big cull?

Start your medicinals in a place where there is nor grass nor bulbs.

Good luck

I am not familiar with the "star of bethlehem" plant, but if it is a bulb, I wonder if something like diakon radishes would out compete them? They are used all the time for breaking up the soil. I have not planted them myself, but heard and seen good things. I believe they need cool weather for best growth though.

Regarding wood chips...do I need to avoid cedar and the like (similar to when thinking about hugelkulture?).  I'm looking for resources and want to be clear about what I should and shouldn't bet getting.  Thanks so much.

Hi Michele,
The short answer is no, you don't really need to worry about.

The long answer is that you want to be careful not to get chips from something that was sprayed with pesticide or herbicide. If you get it from a tree trimming company, you might occasionally get trash in with it. Specifically to Cedar and other allelopathic plants, while I might not put a pile of woodchips from a freshly chipped black walnut tree (that also has leaves chipped in with it) around a sensitive plant, I also wouldn't worry to much about it. I have used cedar just fine in my garden. Most of the time it will come mixed with other wood, but even pure cedar wood chips will be broken down enough very quickly that you won't have any issues.

Thank you so much!

I sympathize, my backyard is also full of star of Bethlehem. I have no magic remedy, but a few observations:

- they will grow even if the bulb is very, very deep, sometimes I dig down 8-9 inches and not even reach the bulb. So you may need *really* deep mulch to have much effect.

-they appear to spread by seed as well as by bulbs. New plants show up in my garden beds each year despite by efforts to dig up the bulbs

-they are not very competitive in sunny lawn areas, more so in shade where they may be the only thing growing.

-I don’t have chickens, but I do have a dog and kids. Theyve never been tempted to eat the star of Bethlehem and never been harmed by it.

I have made my peace with this plant, and just chuck any bulbs I find in the garden beds out into the lawn. The foliage is nice in early spring and the flowers pretty enough later on.

A cover crop would definitely help especially if you're digging a lot. If you want to do a cover crop soon then a mix of oats, peas and hairy vetch will smother just about anything. Millet and buckwheat also work well if you do it in summer. Deep roots aren't really necessary in your case since your aim is to smother weeds. If you want to add diversity in the deep soil strata there's a myriad of things you can use like alfalfa, chicory, plantain, dandelion. But that would entail needing to control them as well,  versus a cover crop that can be reliably terminated.

As said wood chips will also work in place of a cover crop, so long as you have a clean source of them. And of course you can transplant woody plants into it, but I find that young tender plants don't do well in wood chips, after all that's kinda the point. Otherwise piling on your straw will work as well.

As Nate suggested, a cover crop planted next fall of winter rye might help choke any that are left.

The nice thing about winter rye is that it dies when the weather gets warm.

Anne Miller wrote:As Nate suggested, a cover crop planted next fall of winter rye might help choke any that are left.

The nice thing about winter rye is that it dies when the weather gets warm.

This sounds like a good strategy, since I think what keeps star of Bethlehem going so strong is that they put up leaves in very early spring when most plants are still dormant.  So if the rye competes with them then, could be a winner.

My favorite cover crop rotation is winter rye through winter followed by alternating rows of sunflowers and buckwheat in the frost-free months. The sunflowers and buckwheat make a multi-story canopy that fills into 100% cover very quickly, and has so many benefits for soil and life in general it's hard to list. They are very self-sufficient plants and don't need much of anything after planting but maybe one weeding in the first month. I haven't met too many weeds that can thrive when faced with such dense shade.

Michele Morken wrote:Regarding wood chips...do I need to avoid cedar and the like (similar to when thinking about hugelkulture?).  I'm looking for resources and want to be clear about what I should and shouldn't bet getting.  Thanks so much.

Any allelopathic chemicals might even be a bonus, since if I got it right you aim to kill off the star-of-bethlehem before you plant anything that you want to keep? So maybe a mixture of black walnut and cedar might be suitable? And cover-crop with sunflowers, to max out the allelopathic potential...

It looks like star of Bethlehem is a lovely problem to have! I had a look on the Ferns website (pfaf no longer lets me in :( ) and Ken says that it does have edible and medicinal uses, giving it three bananas for edibility. However if you don't feel brave enough to add it to your dinner, I've been watching the Garden Master course and one of the topics covered is dealing with weeds. Helen's approach is to know your weed's lifecycle and work out it's weak spot. Ken says

It can be naturalized in short turf or thin grass below shrubs, though this should not be mown from the time the bulbs start to grow until they have set seed and the leaves are dying down.

source
So logically, by chop and dropping the plant before and during flowering, you will weaken the bulbs so they will be less likely to set seed and come back.

Nancy Reading wrote:
So logically, by chop and dropping the plant before and during flowering, you will weaken the bulbs so they will be less likely to set seed and come back.

Well this is great news!  I've been watching the Master Gardener videos too...but have only watched the first video so far.  I've dug a giant portion of the SOB (star of bethlehem...ha!), but I feel like I'm tossing so much good dirt along with it.  So, I've covered that area with my thick mulch of wood chips and straw.  The leaf mold I cleared back a little to dig the bulbs up is going right back where it was.  I'll mow the rest before I lay the thick mulch and won't unsettle the goodies on the ground.  One little corner is actually starting to look like kinda ready to be garden-ish!  And tomorrow my dad and I are tuning up his old wood chipper, so I'll be learning how to do that.  I've cleared so much dead brush/limbs it is a 10x20' pile in the middle of the yard, that's gonna be fun!  Thanks so much everyone for taking the time to share your immense wisdom and knowledge. I literally can't remember when was the last time I've had this much fun!  Appreciate you!