← Back to the Knowledge Base
🌾 Cover cropping
Sowing fast-growing cover crops (e.g. vetch, phacelia, mustard, alfalfa) into resting or harvested beds in community gardens and orchards, to protect the soil from erosion, suppress weeds, and enrich it with nutrients.
When should you do this?
Early autumn, after the main harvest, or in spring before planting
What will you need?
- Cover crop seed mix (e.g. vetch, phacelia, mustard, alfalfa)
- Rake
- Seed spreader or hand sowing
- Watering can
How to get started?
- Choose a harvested, resting, or otherwise bare bed in the community garden or orchard.
- Lightly loosen the top layer of soil with a rake.
- Scatter the cover crop seed mix evenly at the density given on the packaging.
- Rake the seed in lightly, then water until it germinates.
- Let the plants grow — they'll suppress weeds and cover the soil in the meantime.
- Before flowering, cut it back or work it into the soil so it returns nutrients to the ground.
Useful tips
- Mix a nitrogen-fixing legume (like vetch) with a fast-biomass species for the best effect.
- Cut it back before it sets seed, so the cover crop doesn't become a self-spreading weed.
- Don't let it grow past the bed's edge — keep the spread under control.
Ready? Start a cover cropping project, or join one already running near you.