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[changuar]

Howdy folks! 

Let's talk vegetable gardens.

It's the height of summer, everything is flourishing in the garden plots and harvest season is just beginning, hooray! However, the prudent gardener is already planning for that inevitable post harvest, winter bed preparation.

So... I want your tips and tricks.

What do you plant at the height of summer to harvest right up till those frost dates hit? Do you practice intercropping? What companion crops do you pair together? Do you do anything specific to help prepare/replenish the soil for next season? Do you use cover crops/green manure? If so what crops do you use? annual? perennial? winter-killed? And when? Late summer? Fall? Early Spring? Any of the above? All of the above? Anyone do any fungal innoculation? In fall or in spring? Any other tips, tricks, or methods you utilize moving into fall to the winter and also moving from winter into spring?

[LIBERTYNY]

I have only started practicing cover-croping in the last 4 or 5 years.    At first I just planted stuff bought from the store like flax and amaranth.   The flax grew like a weed but I let it grow to long and it became to fibrous and jammed the hell out of the tiller (still does years latter)

Last year I planted something called Mighty Mustard   --- Biofumigant Mighty Mustard® is an all-natural, broad spectrum cover crop that improves soil while suppressing weeds, insects, and soilborne diseases.     This stuff is delicious spicy as heck

This year I have some type of marigold seed thats susposto suppress nematodes.

I want to try winter wheat one year as it should be able to survive a zone 7 winter, and provide a little wheat

[FewTrueSeed]

Im all no till now. I use daikon raddish and amaranth for cover crops. Stirrup hoe does all the weeding and i keep compost piles in long rows in my garden.

[changuar]

Thanks for the replies folks!

I decided this fall/winter I'm gonna go with some grain cover crops: rye, buckwheat, oats, this kind of thing.

In spring I'm gonna lay down a nice polyculture of perennials: herbs like chamomile, oregano, thyme, etc and a bunch of berries/fruits like strawberries, oregon grape, lingonberry and the like.

I've got lots of purslane and and amaranth as my local "weeds" that like to come in and cover any bare ground so they do a good job around the borders.

I'll update with a more thorough list and maybe some pics when I dig out the seeds and get things going.

[nobody]

Crotalaria is a good cover crop and green manure. If you want some shoot me a PM

nobody )