Cover Crops Help Protect Your Soil Through The Winter

Jacey Bowers:

Okay, hey guys, this is Jacey Bowers. Today we’re at Wabash and I am going to be discussing cover crops, a little bit about what a cover crop does, how it plays a role in our soil, how it can be beneficial. So cover crops, all that really means, we also call it green manure, but it’s basically just a crop that covers our soil. So right here I have oregano and oregano does well in the cold and it’s also going to be fantastic for us herbs-wise. But also let’s just take a little bit of look at all of this wonderful life that is able to exist because of this cover crop. What cover crops do is basically it helps us to provide nutrients and feed our soil during the fall and winter months. That way in the spring when we start getting actual harvest, well not actual harvest, but harvest of what we’re trying to get, that it’s more robust.

Our yields have been increased. A cover crop can provide a few different things. Number one, it helps to prevent erosion because it helps to provide roots which penetrate through the soil, which make cracks, which allows rain to seep into the soil as opposed to run off. Number two, it helps prevent your soil from getting frosted or things like that. That cover crop, it’s going to get hit first.

But number three, it helps to provide this buffer. That’s the most important thing. It provides this buffer so that microbial activity is able to exist. It’s kind of similar to biochar in the sense that it allows this homing of microbial activity to multiply exponentially. That’s kind of what a cover crop does, but it also feeds our soil in return. Honestly, people think that the most important time of the year to prepare is in the spring. False. It is in the fall and the winter. I always believe that my abundance in the spring is a direct result of the work I did in the fall and winter. So definitely come on by, get your plants, ask us questions and plant on.