Cover crops

If you’re not up for growing a winter vegetable garden AND you’re not much of a composter either, think about growing a cover crop. Cover crops are green manure—you grow them through the winter, dig them under in the spring and you’ve added a truckload of organic matter, nutrients and other goodies to your soil.

There are lots and lots of cover crops to choose from depending on your goals. Legumes are about fixing nitrogen in the soil, rye gives you an abundance of organic material, others such as chicory are good forage materials for chickens and other livestock.

Hearnseed.com in Monterey has a wide selection of organic cover crop seed sold by the pound.

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BaltimoreSun—Is it true that Gen Y-ers (30 year olds) wouldn’t touch a garden trowel with a ten-foot pole? Burpee ponders the next generation.