Cover Crop Plant Info from Commodity Traders

Use cover crops when the garden will be left fallow for a season or after a growing season to rebuild soil fertility and hold the soil during winter winds, snow melt and spring rains. Gardening is not done when the last vegetable is picked. Then its time to start next years garden.

Medium Red Clover is the most widely grown of the true clovers. It is a short-lived perennial legume. Medium Red Clover is used for short rotation hay fields and include into pasture mixes with orchard grass & timothy or tall fescue. It is a perennial which acts as a biennial under usual farm conditions. Red Clover normally produces two cuttings during the hay year. Red Clover grows on soils with pH values below those necessary for satisfactory production of alfalfa and sweet clover. It best turned under during its second or third year when nitrogen and biomass production are at their maximum. For best results, sow in spring with an oat nurse crop. Can also be summer sown, or sown mid-winter for frost seeding.

Number of Seasons: Biennial
Planting Depth: .5-1"
Plant: Mid-Winter through Summer
Cold Tolerance: Winter Hardy
Seeding Rate: 8-10lb./acre or .25-5 lb. per 1000 sq. ft.
Soil Type: Tolerates All
Mix With: Oats/Buckwheat

Hairy Vetch is an extremely cold-tolerant, adaptable and vigorous winter annual legume. Plant in late summer to early fall. Slow to establish, but very prolific spring growth once soil warms up. Dense, viney growth habit, 2-3 feet high. It can attain greater height when supported by rye/oats/triticale. Contributes 80-250 lb/acre nitrogen and 3000-5000 lb/acre dry matter. The second-year growth of hairy vetch can be utilized as livestock feed. It is palatable as pasture, or can be harvested as hay or silage.

Number of Seasons: Annual
Planting Depth: .5-1"
Plant: late summer/early fall
Cold Tolerance: Winter Hardy
Seeding Rate: 25-35lb./acre or 1/2-1 lb. per 1000 sq.ft.
Soil Type: Tolerate All
Mix With: Winter Rye

Kentucky 31 (KY-31) Tall Fescue is a cool season, aggressive, perennial bunchgrass that grows to a height of three to four feet. It has gained importance because of its ability to adapt to a wide variety of types of soils, including poorly drained areas. KY-31 has short creeping rootstocks that develop into a uniform, thick sod. It is robust, rather coarse, and long-lived. KY-31 has dark green leaves with a spreading seed head. It produces more on sandstone-shale based soils than other cool season grasses. Tall Fescue is one of the more drought resistant plants of the cool season group, and will maintain itself under rather limited fertility. KY-31 requires a moist, weed-free, firm seedbed. Fescue grown along with legumes can minimize the problems sometimes associated with pure fescue stands. To get the best results from fescue, it should be clipped after seed harvest is complete. Fescue will withstand closer grazing and more abuse than most cool-season grasses, but it can be overgrazed to the point that vigor and production of the next season is reduced. Use of rotation grazing has proven successful, by allowing the plants a period of regrowth after heavy grazing.

Number of Seasons: Perennial

Planting Depth: .5"
Plant: Spring or Fall
Cold Tolerance: Winter Hardy
Seeding Rate: 7 - 9 lb. per 1000 sq.ft.
Soil Type: Tolerate All

Buckwheat is a rapid growing, broadleaf, summer annual, and is a great smother crop for weeds. It flowers in 5-6 weeks and grows 3-6 ft tall. Good for building organic matter and increasing calcium and phosphorous availability. Plant spring through summer. Does well in poor soils. Matures in 10-12 weeks.

Number of Seasons: Annual
Planting Depth: .5-1"
Plant: Late Spring to Two Months Before Frost
Cold Tolerance: Killed by Frost
Seeding Rate: 50-100 lb./acre or 1.2-2.5 lb per 1000 sq. ft.
Incorporate: Before Frost
Soil Type: Tolerates All

Winter Rye is the most cold-hardy and productive annual grass and it tolerates a wide range of soil conditions. Plant any time from early to late fall. Germinates and grows quickly to a height of 4-5 feet. Its fibrous roots markedly improve soil structure. Commonly grown with peas or vetch to provide structural support.

Number of Seasons: Annual
Planting Depth: .5-1"
Plant: Fall
Cold Tolerance: winter hardy
Seeding Rate:80-115lb./acre or 2-3.5lb.per 1000sq.ft.
Soil Type: Tolerates All
Mix With: Hairy Vetch

When to add Pectin and not. Fruit jams are a staple of winter life.

Pectin and Acid Content of Common Fruits Used to Make Jelly

Group I:		If not overripe, has enough natural pectin and acid for gel formation with only added sugar.
Group II:		Low in natural acid or pectin, and may need addition of either acid or pectin.
Group III:		Always needs added acid, pectin or both.

Group I	Group II	Group III
Apples, sour Blackberries, sour Crabapples Cranberries Currants Gooseberries Grapes (Eastern Concord) Lemons Loganberries Plums (not Italian) Quinces	Apples, ripe Blackberries, ripe Cherries, sour Chokecherries Elderberries Grapefruit Grape Juice, bottled (Eastern Concord) Grapes (California) Loquats Oranges	Apricots Blueberries Figs Grapes (Western Concord) Guavas Peaches Pears Plums (Italian) Raspberries Strawberries

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This document was adapted from "So Easy to Preserve", 5th ed. 2006. Bulletin 989, Cooperative Extension Service, The University of Georgia, Athens. Revised by Elizabeth L. Andress. Ph.D. and Judy A. Harrison, Ph.D., Extension Foods Specialists.

Swale Filling Rain(Click Here for Video)

In June 2006 we put in these huge swales. They are designed to catch water and keep it in the area of plant roots in the orchard. Otherwise the run-off would sheet off the ground down hill into the wetland and not soak in as much as is needed. The video is during the only downpour we had so far this summer. 1" in about 30 minutes. That is a lot of rain to catch in a short time. Swales are designed to do just that and are usually oversized for that reason. Also, in spring they fill with snow, ice and water as the ground is frozen. Spring is an important time to keep the moisture that has been building up all winter and would otherwise flow away over frozen soil.

Keyhole Garden Mid Summer

The Stromme garden is flourishing after we sheet mulched it last fall (See Blog entry Oct.8, 2008) and
planted it from a polyculture diversity design. Very few weeds and great production.

Swale set on small hill for fruiting shrubs

Using a laser level and tiller. a small swale set can be established in an
afternoon. Careful consideration must be made for the overflow to each swale
and the output if a large rain occurs. These swales will be planted with
Currants and Beach Plum Polycultures.

I use a tiller for many purposes that need soil break-up and a controlled depth.

A keyline from the barn catchment moves the water to the swales.

These swales are small and will fill fast, but catch a small area.

A round shovel is used to excavate the tilled swale onto berms for planting.

The harvest keeps getting bigger and better.

Slowly planting the production areas each summer has built a manageable capacity. We are getting closer to complete meals and finding a rhythm to the daily harvest.

Eco-Trade Evangelism

My first inclination is that the power to change through purchasing choices is the same problem that got us here and the inability for people to see new options. It seems people will not sacrifice or change their habits and insist on spending capital and buying more stuff. Even dynamic organizations can only think of selling to outsiders to bring them in. Merchandising our solutions is a bad idea.

Also, involving foreign countries in free-trade smacks again of the capitalistic and dominating nature of our economy and the single minded consumerism of America to solve others problems. So we buy their products with dollars and they use to money to what, build sustainability or buy foreign goods? It is a form of colonial economics not self reliance. Global markets are abused and energy wasted to transfer natural resources across oceans. Natural resources should not be exported and human efforts should be focused on self sustaining systems and self renewing fertility in the soil and minds of people.

This may be what we see in the city where it is expensive to exist. Everyone and every organization must be part of the economic system to survive for any length of time. Therefore they integrate with that economic model to survive and export that model as part of their organizational process.