What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the epic gardening podcast. This is Kevin. Today we are talking about

Cover crops. I actually have a question today from Peggy so garden soil is giving me fits, I've augmented it, I hope

I'm on my way to better soil. Good luck with that Peggy. I hope to get analyzed also.

Related to this, I'd like to sew a cover crop this fall.

I'd like to know what's recommended, when to die, and what to do in the spring.

Well, to answer this question, I figured I haven't talked about cover crops yet on the

podcast so I feel like this episode will just be about the basics of cover crops.

So first of all what exactly are they?, they might just be some of the hardest working

plants that you'll ever grow even though you don't quote unquote use them. They're also known as green manure. They're also known as green manure. They help to suppress weeds, they build

soil, they help control pests and diseases. They're super easy to plant and they don't really require a lot of care. So those are the major benefits of cover crops and they're called that because effectively they are something to cover the soil when it is not in productive use.

Most people think, and I did actually for a while, that cover crops are just for larger scale farmers, maybe even medium scale

urban growers, but that's not necessarily true. Cover crops can be used in just

about every garden whether you have a huge one or a small one.

So here is sort of the step by step overview

of how to think about cover crops.

First, you have to plant it. So if you've ever reseeded a bare patch of lawn, you can plant a cover crop. It's very simple. All you need to do is just rake the soil slightly, broadcast the seed, rake it in, and then water it in.

So if you do decide to do this in fall, you should make sure to do it at least a month before your frost date

because that will kill them off that would defeat the purpose of the cover

crop you wouldn't want that to happen it wouldn't have established itself to get all those benefits that we're growing it for.

Now, when it comes to care, they are very low maintenance.

That's sort of the purpose of them.

Most people can just mow or trim them to keep them manageable and it

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