An increasing number of vegetable gardeners are reaping the benefits of using cover crops to conserve and improve their garden soil. As our summer vegetable crop harvest is nearing its end – and rainfall has increased soil moisture – now is the time to plant cover crops that will spend most of the winter months growing and giving to improve soil conditions.

I have grown vegetable crops in-ground for years, but only recently added planting a cover crop in the fall to prevent soil erosion, increase organic matter in the soil , reduce soil compaction and more. In an effort to accomplish even more, this fall I am going to try a combination of two crops – wheat and tillage radish. In addition to covering the bare ground, the wheat will provide biomass to increase organic matter and the tillage radish has a long taproot that will help relieve soil compaction and break through the hardpan layer of soil.

Gardeners may also add legumes a green manure crops to increase nitrogen in the soil that will be available to crops that follow.

See “The Tennessee Vegetable Garden: Stewardship in Soil Management” at this link: https://solutions.tennessee.edu/?view_pub_pdf=979