We've never planted a cover crop ourselves, but buckwheat seems to be the crop of choice in our area. You are one zone warmer than us, so it might be worth a try even though it's late in the year. Check with your local Extension---they are usually a good source of advice.

Buckwheat will not sprout now. It is a warm-season crop. I don't think anything will germinate now. Maybe 2 weeks ago you could have got in winter rye, but right now it'd be sporadic and you'd have to deal with all those sprouting seeds next spring. You do not want to till in unsprouted winter rye seeds.

I did winter rye one year and had the same experience, only I didn't have a tiller, had to dig it in by hand. Never again.

Hairy vetch was probably at one time a livestock feed or cover crop, I don't think it's native. It's quite a weed now.

I bought from Pinetree Seeds 'BigN Alfalfa'. I sowed that on some of my raised beds in Sept. after I pulled the squash, cukes, etc. It has made a nice carpet of green less than 12" high. I think it is supposed to be killed over the winter. Any beds I didn't get to get a cover crop growing, I added a couple inches of compost, then topped with shredded leaves. Makes for nice worm action.

Mainerose, Veilchen,

Thanks for your responses. You've helped me avoid making some troublesome mistakes. I'll skip the cover crop this year and do some advanced planning for next year. I also plan to start my fall garden earlier next year, too. My Sugar Snaps pathetically just started blooming about 10 days ago. And my radishes, kohlrabi, turnips, and swiss chard are growing rather slowly, though surviving. But now it's doubtful that I will get anything from my fall garden this year other than a little organic matter for the soil.

Maybe I should be thinking about cover crops at the same time I am doing my fall plantings next year. Veilchen, I'll take a look at that BigN Alfalfa from Pinetree Seeds. The concept of a summertime covercrop might be applicable at some places in our garden. The buckwheat might work for that, too. I also might try experimenting with some lawn grasses like fescue.

MM

So if the good folks at Agway told my husband (who has very kindly been helping me with garden cleanup this fall) to plant buckwheat as a cover crop, and he did so last week, how messy is our vegetable garden going to be next summer? If it sprouts in April, can I till it under alive?

Daria, it probably won't sprout until next spring. Hopefully it will start to sprout fairly early. I don't know exactly how warm it needs to be for buckwheat to sprout. You will need to let it sprout before you plant--otherwise you'll have buckwheat as a weed growing all through your vegetables.

Depending on how soon you plant your veg. garden, I would let the buckwheat sprout and grow a bit, then compost it vs. turning under (not enough time to decompose before planting veggies). There's always next year.

MM, sowing cover crops at the right time is tricky here. We only have a short window between end of veg. season and time enough to get a cover crop growing, let alone time enough for it to grow large enough to turn under. Most falls, many of my vegetable beds are still filled with edibles like peas, lettuce, etc. Sometimes I set aside certain beds to be "fallow" after a spring crop, instead of sowing another vegetable in them. Then I will plant some buckwheat, or, this year, alfalfa.

Veilchen, thanks for the tip!! I figured that's what might happen. We'll put leaves on top of the garden to mulch for the winter and prevent soil loss, and compost those buckwheat sprouts next spring, then amend the soil by tilling in some completed compost. Hopefully next fall we will get the cleanup done sooner. But with such lovely growing weather through mid-October, who could give up on those tomatoes and peppers for a cover crop? Sensibility just had to give way this year.

Veilchen,

"...sowing cover crops at the right time is tricky here."

You can say that again. At least you are experienced enough with this to know what the problems and trade-offs are. I too had vegetables that were producing well right up to frost, including lots of peppers, cucumbers, beans, and eggplants.

My tomatoes had developed problems. Next year I plan to spray them frequently with something safe and preventative, like potassium bicarbonate, to try to keep them healthy. I also plan to use bicarbonate on my squash vines, pumpkin vines, and cucumber vines, to fight powdery mildew on general principles. This year my cheap Wal-Mart sprayer failed in two places. Hopefully I will have a better sprayer for next year.

I have been putting my tomato vines in the garbage, and not on the compost pile. The watermelon vines seemed healthy, but I also put them in the garbage to be on the safe side. There's a lot more to gardening than non-gardeners realize.

As far as cover crops go this year, my garden will go through the winter bare, except for my daughter's strawberry patch (which did very well this year) and her rhubarb. I don't know what I will figure out for next year. But I'll have fun doing it. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

MM

I have tried buckwheat, vetch, a mix from Johnny's, clover, and oats. Oats win hands down. If it goes to seed it isn't a pest like buckwheat, and you don't have to till it under or compost it. It dies back and forms a great ready-made mulch, and I just plant around and thru it.
Martha

Martha,

Thanks for the benefit of your experience. Next year I will try oats as my cover crop. About when do you plant the oats? I guess you could scatter the seeds while your garden was still growing.

MM

Yes, absolutely while things are still growing. I even have one friend who scatters oats in her perennial bed. The bulk of my perennial beds are in my front yard, streetside, so I don't do that cause it looks like the devil.

Of course, you can't foresee what the fall weather will be like, so some years you will have planted too early, some too late. I guess ideally you want close to a month to get good growth. So figure about a month before your frost date. Too early is better than too late. I sow each bed individually according to what crop is or was in there. Starting in August, whenever I pull something out, or it starts to slow down, I sow oats. If I was really organized and did a lot of successive seedings of lettuce, spinach, etc. I probably wouldn't want to start so early, but then I do have a veg garden that is really too big for me, and the oats help keep the weeds down. I also use straw in my paths. (The oat plant really IS my friend. lol!) One year we had a frost the second week in Sept. This year, not till November. And that was great cause I didn't FIND my bag of oats until Sept!

All that said, one of the advantages of buckwheat is that it is said to have alleopathic qualities, that is it inhibits subsequent weed growth even after it is turned under. However, on the down side, I have been told that if it is let go to seed it can become a nuisance.
Good luck!