Cover crops, also known as green manure, play a crucial role in sustainable gardening by improving soil structure, enhancing moisture retention, and suppressing weeds.

Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just starting out, integrating cover crops into your late fall gardening routine can yield remarkable benefits for your soil and plants.

Certain cover crops can help control pests, such as the mustard plant, which controls harmful nematodes. Below the soil, legumes — plants in the Fabaceae family — fix nitrogen.

Planting ground cover in fields between cash crop growing seasons is an effective way to prevent farmland from losing soil carbon from erosion, a factor that’s underestimated in considering the ...

With cover crops, true ROI — improved soil health and reduced erosion — may outweigh the negative financial ROI.” Ferrie’s trials confirm cover crops’ impact on soil health and erosion.

Traditionally, fall cover crops are a combination of a cereal grain with some type of legume. A cereal grain such as wheat, oats or rye is planted with a legume, such as clover or winter peas.

Farmers manage crops, maintain equipment, and market products, often while balancing a second job and family demands. Adding a dispute with a crop insurance company is the last thing farmers need.

Cover crops are a wide range of plants that can help ward off weeds, ... Customers line up to buy produce from the De La Mesa Farms booth at the Proctor Farmers Market on Aug. 10 near Tacoma.

Annual crops, such as tomatoes, corn, and lettuce, cover a significant portion of our plates and farmland acres. However, the constant work of planting and harvesting can be time-consuming and tiring.

A field planted with cereal rye, one of the most common cover crops in Iowa. Photo by Ally Larson/Iowa State University. AMES, Iowa – Planting ground cover in fields between cash crop growing seasons ...

While cover crops modestly increase soil carbon, the reduction in erosion is a separate benefit. Globally, cover crops could reduce soil carbon erosion by 25%, with a 20% reduction in the central U.S.