Green Manure/Cover crop for Southern New Hampshire?

[Buff Orpington]

I have horrible sandy soil. I've added loads of compost and manure but the soil just eats it up. I've been doing my best to improve the soil. My last soil test said that I have 1% organic material . Not to mention a very sore back.

I'm looking for suggestions for a spring cover crop. In my humble opinion I feel that Austrian winter pea is the best choice. I'm planning to plant it Saint Patricks Day.

I forgot to mention that I live in Southern NH zone 5.

Feedback good/bad would be really helpful.

Thanks!

[rainbowgardener]

I've not done cover crops, so can't really help you. I'm just a bit curious about why your soil is "eating" so much organic matter without being more improved. Can you give us an idea of how large an area you are talking about? It's obviously more difficult to improve acreage than a couple hundred square feet. When you say added "loads" of stuff, is that loads in the sense of "bunches" "seems like a lot to me" or is it loads in the sense of literal truckloads?

Are you tilling? If you add a lot of organics and then you till it up, ESPECIALLY if you till more than once a year, you are dramatically speeding up the breakdown/ disappearance of all that good stuff. Do you mulch? Mulching continuously adds organic matter AND protects what is already there.

If you want to have some small areas of really good soil to grow your tomatoes or other faves, think about putting in a few raised beds. Then you can fill your beds with good enriched topsoil and not worry about the sand underneath (I have a couple raised beds on top of my concrete patio; if you build them deep it REALLY does not matter what's underneath).

But cover crops are also a good thing and legumes are nitrogen fixers.

[Tonio]

I have sandy soil also. I have added organic material for the past year - still starting

As RG suggested adding amendments to the soil , then using mulch does help- I've got some worms already !!

I was considering using a cover crop also, and purchased some buckwheat. I researched, and it appears you want to use multiple types of cover crops.

If you have the funds, perhaps a raised bed is the way to go?


T

[cynthia_h]

....

If you have the funds, perhaps a raised bed is the way to go?


T

In 2008, I returned to active gardening after an enforced hiatus of approx. 10 years (car accident). I absolute wasn't up to digging, double-digging, or anything else, nor did I have any money. DH's salary, never intended as sole support in the S.F. Bay Area for our household, was indeed doing double duty, as all three of my part-time jobs had evaporated. Hmm...how to make raised beds (aka Square Foot Gardens, in my case) without $ layout?

"Aha!" I thought to myself. "You already get/give stuff via FreeCycle in the way of fabric. Why not watch for possible raised bed supplies?"

And, lo and behold, it came to pass soon thereafter that...

--one offeror had cinder blocks for the picking up.
--another had 2x12s
--yet another had 2x8s
--and some used pine shelving

The cinder blocks, simply laid in two courses, holes up for potential planting, formed and still form Bed #1, approx. 10 to 12 inches deep. That first season, I made the mistake of believing Mel Bartholomew when he said "6 inches is deep enough for anything." Bullfeathers. Add enough for 10, ideally 12, inches, plus reaching into the ground if possible.

The 2x12s, cut to uniform 4-foot lengths, became three square frames which, depending on the season or the year, can either be stacked as a potato tower or used as three small SFGs. Right now they're SFGs, but I think this March (yikes! next month?!) they'll become a potato tower.

The 2x8s became a fourth layer for the potato tower, should such be needed.

And the pine shelving became...well...without going outside I can't be completely sure (and it's dark right now as well as raining YES RAIN ), but I think the pine shelving forms the ends of Bed #5, which is 2.5' x 8'. Its sides are purchased 2x12s. DH just couldn't stand waiting any longer for free lumber and ran off to buy some one day. I could not believe it.

So, all told, I got five gardening frames built *and* filled for $58 that first season. Since then they've cost me exactly...nothing.

I like that kind of amortization schedule!

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[tomc]

Buff, when I lived in NH ('76-'10) and gardened on sand. And felt the need for a green manure. I used annual rye that I planted in the fall, and tilled in, in the spring.

[nedwina]

I have horrible sandy soil. I've added loads of compost and manure but the soil just eats it up. I've been doing my best to improve the soil. My last soil test said that I have 1% organic material . Not to mention a very sore back.

I'm looking for suggestions for a spring cover crop. In my humble opinion I feel that Austrian winter pea is the best choice. I'm planning to plant it Saint Patricks Day.

I forgot to mention that I live in Southern NH zone 5.

Feedback good/bad would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Get yourself a copy of this book: https://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7976-northeast-cover-crop-handbook.aspx Worth every dime. Lots of very useful information about the how & why of cover cropping, with emphasis on the Northeast.

If you just want to add organic matter, buckwheat is quite good- grows fast and generates substantial volume. But offhand I suspect that temps need to be up there for best growth. Certainly peas or clovers will be good for cool spring temps, (or favas) but if you want to add serious volume, (like 4%) it's an ongoing thing. I'm going to sow "Tillage" or daikon radish later, in the late summer. (Probably mixed with winter rye.) Not only do they open up hardpan, but they add alot of organic matter when they rot. Something to research & consider~

[Buff Orpington]

Thanks for all the input. I'm glad tomc has gardened in New Hampshire sand. I will plant the rye in the fall but I need something for this spring. I think I'm going to go with peas.

The sandy soil is common in NH plus my backyard used to be a farmers field that has had everything vital to good soil 'sucked' out of it.

My garden is 20X40. I do till it once in the spring and again in the fall. I mulch with newspaper, 4 or 5 sheets thick and mulch hay.

I've had manure delivered twice and the total amount worked in would be approx 1/2 a dump truck.

I 'steal' leaves from our local dump and compost them using chicken bedding and a sprinkle of dirt and start layering all over again.