Cover Crops 101: Understanding the Benefits, Uses and How to Plant Them

Howdy! I am Christi from Little Salty Homesteader, and in this video, I am explaining the fundamentals of cover crops: what they are, why you use them, and how to plant them. I also provide examples you can plant in your own garden, and show you how I am planting them in my own North Texas in-ground flower bed.
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[@TheWickerShireProject]

Good Morning Dr.Salty. I'll be working on the seeds shortly. Do another shout out vid. Thanks for providing us with content.
I wish i had land set up to do cover cropping. For now its just chop and dropping weeds.
I don't know what was worst. Your tatter bugs or my flea Beetles. I vote we send them to war against one another and the winners get a free dip in a bucket of water with a sealed lid!

[@growyourownfood7814]

I grew daikon radish last year in one of my garden plots. It did pretty well, was easy to terminate. May do it again this year, not sure. In the past I have grown the regular white flowered buckwheat. It grew well, was easy to terminate but did tend to reseed. Pollinators really liked it. I also tried a cover crop of annual ryegrass. Big mistake, since it is very hard to kill, even with a tiller. Good for winter pasture, just not for the garden. I plan on using red ripper pea next year, since you can eat it and it covers well. Those vines will grow everywhere.

[@littlesaltyhomesteader]

@@growyourownfood7814 red ripper pea - is that a cow pea? Have you noticed that the cover crops help the condition of your garden? I know you’re a soil conservationist, so what’s your take on using them to help slow erosion?

[@growyourownfood7814]

@@littlesaltyhomesteader Red ripper pea is a vining cow pea that can get several feet long. Think of it like a pole bean on steroids. Cover crops do help soil health since you keep something on the soil instead of bare ground. They definitely reduce erosion since bare soil erodes pretty quickly. The rain hitting the bare soil puts the soil into suspension and leaves the area with the rain runoff. Some things like buckwheat make quickly(45 to 60 days) and fills the gap between garden crops. Grows well in summer when nothing much will grow. FYI you can also spread radish seed into your backyard bermuagrass lawn and they will come up and make you some radishes.
Work of caution just make sure you know how you are going to terminate the cover crop or it can also become a weed. Some things like sun hemp are hard to get rid of without the right equipment.

[@TheWickerShireProject]

Don't knock it! You Could grow those radishes as big! Our neighbor Eric and Brit grew a 16 inch cucumber.

[@littlesaltyhomesteader]

@@TheWickerShireProject lol! If I end up with giant Daikon, I’m pickling them for some Asian recipes 😂. Otherwise, I’m using them to break up my hard clay!
Good luck with your fall planting.

[@TheWickerShireProject]

@@littlesaltyhomesteader Daikon Hammer! 🤣