I over-learned a pattern when I was a kid getting to deal with large subsistence type gardening: Work organic matter into the soil; keep the plants watered and the weeds down and you get produce. This is simple and effective enough, and I learned to hate gardening form the repetitions of it when I was a kid. Now I am taking care of a couple flower gardens and a 20' x 40' veg garden for my 70 something year old mom, and I want her to have the best gardens possible.rainbowgardener wrote:... A cover plant is something quick growing that you plant seeds of at or near the end of the season. Let it grow for awhile and then in late winter/early spring turn it under, into the soil. Then the nutrients in the plant are released into the soil as the plant breaks down.
I presume I should be planting a cover crop when I strip the garden in the fall and turning it in as soon as I can in the spring. I am in SE New England, zone 5B, I think.
What should I be planting? How do I plant it? What else should I know about it, and what is the quick and painless version of doing this?
Thanks much.