Time to clean up the garden and start cover crops

By Rennie Phillips

Little by little, I've been clearing the garden spots that have finished producing.

My corn is done, so I bush hogged it off, and it's waiting for some decent weather to disk.

We picked the row of broccoli earlier in the spring, so I cleaned up that spot.

The squash bugs took care of our zucchini, so I need to clean up that area.

The onions were through growing, so I pulled all of them, and they are hanging in the shop.

About a month ago or so, I pulled and dug the last of my garlic, and it's hanging in the shop as well.

All the potatoes have been dug, so that area is ready for the disk.

I cleaned one of my tunnels out totally, scattered 13-13-13 fertilizer over the ground and tilled it under. Now I start cleaning out the other high tunnel.

As I clean an area, I go ahead and either till it or disk it or both. I like to plant something back into the cleared out areas to grow as either a fall crop or a cover crop.

I normally plant our bigger garden totally into a mix of purple-top turnips, golden turnips and whatever seed I have left.

This leftover seed can include some turnips or beets or peas or radishes and so on.

Most of the area will come up almost exclusively purple-top or golden turnips. But there will be some radishes here and there or a pea now and then.

I really like turnips as a cover crop.

Now is a great time to plant your turnips. I usually figure about the middle of August as my target date. That will give our turnips about 60 days to grow before our first frost.

The good thing about turnips is a frost normally doesn't hurt them. Some even claim a frost makes them sweeter.

There is a Tokyo cross turnip that requires 30 days to reach maturity. Consider it! I buy my seed from Morgan County and it is relatively expensive. Turnips are like hen egg size or so.

Some other cover drops can double as a veggie producer and a cover crop. I planted about a foot-wide row of beets in one of our high tunnels.

Last year, I had most of a row of beets make it through the winter and they were just delicious in the spring. I also planted a couple rows of green beans in the one high tunnel. My plans are to pick some green beans if they make it, and they should. Green beans aren't real good as a cover crop. They are rather hard to till in. Beets are super easy.

I also went through my older seed and came up with some Swiss chard, collards, lettuce seed, more beet seed and some spinach seed. I'll probably mix the collard seed in with the turnips. It should grow and do fine out in our bigger garden.

I have seven more rows to plant in the tunnels, so I need to decide what sounds best to eat and for cover crops and green manure. I know part of one row will be Swiss chard. One row will be spinach. I might even plant two rows of spinach. I do like spinach. I also need at least another row of beets or maybe even two.

A row of lettuce will do nicely in the tunnel. I had some romaine lettuce make it until the temperatures dipped down around zero last winter. It was pretty neat walking into the tunnel with some snow on the ground and that green lettuce looking so pretty.

I was reading a magazine from Baker Creek and it talked about Austrian field peas. It really talked them up as an addition to salads and such. I did some more reading on the Austrian peas and found they are an excellent cover crop and also can double as livestock feed. I ordered some from Morgan County Seeds yesterday, so when they come we'll plant them. I'm excited about trying them. One review said they are relatively easy to till in. I'm planning on planting some of our bigger garden with Austrian peas.

Other cover crops are alfalfa, rye, wheat, soy beans and so on. Morgan County has nine different cover-crop varieties.

One I don't plant is a leafy turnip variety. It doesn't develop turnip bulbs, but just grows leafy tops. I would think it would be a great deer-plot crop. I planted it by mistake one year. It was great as a green manure but sure didn't satisfy my cravings for some good turnips.

Check with your local feed stores, such as your co-op or MFA. They probably will sell you a small amount of seed. You might even check with your local garden center. Check with Steve over at Whitaker's.

If you have to buy more than you need, simply store the leftover seed in your freezer. I've got seed in my freezer that is probably five years old. I'm cleaning it out so next spring I start fresh.

Don't forget to prepare a bed for your fall planted garlic. I usually till up where I'm going to plant the garlic and then cover it with a couple inches of straw.

There are several places around Scott City you can buy straw. Kirkendorfers up by Wal-Mart sell straw. Most of the garden centers sell straw. I usually buy my straw from Wib. I'm going to need some straw, so I need to give him a call.

I plant my garlic some time in September and then sometimes in October. I use a dibbler I made from a piece of 2x2 pine board.

Give each clove of garlic a 6-inch separation from the other cloves in all directions. After planting, water it in. You can fertilize before tilling using a balanced blend such as 13-13-13.

Enjoy the last part of summer and your garden. Winter is coming!

Until next time.