Backyard Bounty

It breaks my heart to think about fall, but if I remain in denial too much longer I’m going to kick myself in another month when I’m not harvesting fresh greens, as well as muttering in the spring that I should have seeded cover crops. Nature abhors bare ground, and it’s better that I fill it in than let her do any planting. We’ve all seen what that happens with the bindweed situation!

Cover crops (also called green manures) add a fair amount of nutrients back to the soil, plus hold down the dirt so it’s not blown into the next county. The key to a fall crop is to choose fast growing varieties that take hold before serious cold. I bought some from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, as well as the local Bundi’s Gardens. Both have a mix of winter peas, rye, clover and a hairy vetch. The clover does a great job of sending roots deep in the soil to hold the plant in place, while the peas help fix nitrogen in the soil. All of them are good ways to add organic matter into the soil.

I seeded areas at the Westside community garden because there were a few empty spaces that made me twitch. I ran the rototiller over everything a few days ago so all it took was scattering it by hand (the hooshle method), and raking it into the soil. Of course, I almost forgot the step of pitching mud chunks at the stupid pigeons that reside at the gentleman’s house where we have the garden. He feeds them bread daily so they look to us as walking vending machines. And even though they’re completely spoiled they still insist on being greedy little pigs. As soon as I scattered the seed, they swooped down and started pecking away. I kept flushing them off, and finally covered the areas with a thin layer of straw to dissuade them.

At home I seeded the fall cover crop where I pulled up cabbage, broccoli and the bed of beans I just ranked because they didn’t look good. The bean bed is probably my poorest one so I’m really hoping the green manure improves the soil considerably.

After seeding the fall cover crop in the bare spots, I seeded a few veggies to round out the season. I planted a 3 x 4 block of spinach and about the same size of radishes at the Westside garden. I need to seed in one little section of lettuce, too. And the boys and I seeded more radishes in one of the Square Foot Garden beds. They germinate within days, and I suspect we’ll begin eating them even before the first frost.

I’m a bit later than I would’ve like for my fall crops (see above – denying fall is coming), but at least wanted some greens and radishes to nibble on later in the season. Plus, if I got my act together with the number of radishes the boys seeded in their couple of squares that I could make the Radish Relish like my friend Jennifer at Chic Homesteader.  Normally we just eat them fresh, but this looks like a fabulous way to go to end the season.

Tags: fall cover crop, fall planting, green manure, spinach