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R. Steele wrote:Hello!

Just roll those crops it once they starts to pre boot. The rolling crimps the stem at that stage of development, and terminates the plant...

Hope that helps!

I'm down with everything but one question. What is rolling?  Do I need a special tool and can I do a small area without the tool? This is my trial of cover crops so I want to make sure I like them before I buy special tools

Hello
Last fall I decided to try out winter wheat and annual rye (seperate gardens) as overwintering living mulches here in Ontario Canada (zone 5 I think).
It took decently well but now that spring has sprung im not sure how and when to kill it so that I can plant into that soil?

Do i just turn the soil? or will it die if i cut it back?

I feel like turning the soil is counterproductive to the grasses ability to make nice topsoil

sorry I imagine this is a dumb question but I couldnt find an answer anywhere

I am taking this perenial vegetables thing and fruit tree advice to heart
I am also spending some time to fix up our fruit trees which I have been neglecting due to too much enjoyment with annual vegetables.

OK lots of amazing info here.
Im happy others had good luck with their clay soil too. Some of the techniques sound pretty interesting but I already got wood chip mulch (tree cuttings) so i will go with that.
I will also plant some perennial vege's to cut down on the work.

I got tree cuttings so it has leaves etc mixed in which should help with nitrogen theft right?

Another question about sheet mulching. Do I want to just put the nitrogen source right under the wood. I have piles of fallen apples which I imagine i will put on top of my nice new soil and under the wood chips. Makes sense?

I will put the chips on now in the fall so they are partially decomposed come spring as well.

Last question. When you sheet mulch, you dont work in any extra material into the soil year over year right? it seems hard to pull back all the mulch and work things in. (i tried this this year and it sucked).
Then as the mulch decomposes you just add more?

re: grow an orchard:
i have a few apple pear plum and cherry trees so i feel like i have that part under control. Trees are easy so that is totally a good suggestion (but i already have them). If i were starting from scratch somewhere new. I would start with trees.

re perenial herbs:
really the only reason i dont want to do that is that it doesnt excite me and im doing this for fun. That would be a plan D for me

re: garden stuff:
the area that i want to do first is ~100sqf. I have 4 100sqf plots marked out but im just trying to figure everything out on the first plot then ill expand to the other 3.
I think i can probably get a tree clipping guy to dump a truck load at my place and i can find loads of cardboard at a warehouse down the road (they toss about 10kg of cardboard a day and have to pay someone to take it )

so its either cover crop (for large areas) or sheet mulch (for small)?
Then once you sheet mulch you no longer cover crop and you just keep adding more mulch when it disappears? Wouldnt weeds start to take root in there? or do i just keep weeding it like normal?
I like the idea of the clovers. Maybe ill go get some and toss them down now in case i dont get around to sheet mulching before winter.

I have never tried gypsum, interesting.

Whats the difference between a hugelkulture and just tilling in wood chips? is it that it is much thicker so it breaks down over many years.
i have plenty of wood. I could try to dig some under my garden but that might be un reasonable since i imagine it has to be quite deep to avoid messing with my shovel/till.
Is that better than a sheet mulch setup?

Hi there I have a hobby farm that used to taken care of about 10 years ago and has fallen to disrepair.
It is in eastern ontario and has clay soil.
For the past few years I tried ammending the soil to make it plant friendly but its still hard like a rock so I am coming to you guys for help.
Its also not where I live so im looking for some maintenance method that is fairly easy since im there every other weekend.

Firstly i imagine i will lay down cardboard and sheet mulch as that seems popular and good.
Do i need to ammend my soil first? With what? I found a compost heap hidden away which managed to add about 4" of fluffy redish root dense soil to my garden. Should i add anything else?
At the end of a season do you pull the mulch back and put ammendments in every year?
Do you winter cover crop when you have sheet mulch?

I have tonnes of weeds. Is the premise of keeping them away to just sheet mulch or have all year living cover crop? like clovers?

please and thanks
this is driving me nuts