Dan’s Almost Daily Journal-Winter Cover Crop is Planted/Enjoy the Warmer Weather and Remaining Fall Foliage

Volume 45-Tag Along With Me on My Sometimes Boring Sometimes Interesting Sometimes Humorous Journey Through Life

Welcome back. It’s been a few weeks since my last journal entry. Here we are heading for the end of October. Time marches on. Rather quickly indeed.

Enjoy the Warm Weather This Weekend and Next Week in the Northeast

After a rather chilly last 4 or 5 days, with temperatures in the mid-20s at night and 40s during the day (and cold wind), it looks like some nice weather is again returning for the weekend and next week. Temperatures will be in the 60s and close to 70s some days over the next week. Perhaps the last hurrah before even colder weather sets in.

Still Enjoying the Fall Foliage

Today, I enjoyed the beautiful weather and went for a 7.5-mile bike ride near Bowman Lake State Park. One of my favorite destinations, I did a loop ride around the perimeter of the park. Even though the trees are past peak, there is still plenty of foliage to enjoy. I will post more details of this ride in a future article; here is another photo from my ride today:

The Cover Crop Seed Is Planted

In my last daily journal article, I wrote about possibly planting a winter cover crop in my vegetable gardens:

As my title gives away, I decided to try this method. Time will tell how successful it will be. I ended up ordering the cover crop seeds from Amazon, due mainly to being able to get them shipped quickly. This is the seed I purchased.

This mix contains 13 different seeds including at least 4 clovers, Vetch, Flax, Cowpeas, Buckwheat, Forage Peas, Millet, Lentils, and others. According to the Amazon description:

• Inoculated with Rhizobium; Encourages Beneficial Mycorrhizal Fungi populations to thrive, which literally helps deliver nutrients to the roots of the plants
• A bio-diverse array of cover crop varieties attracts a wide variety of beneficial organisms & predators which contribute to soil fertility and humus quality
• Perfect for Raised Beds and/or No-Till Container Gardening
• High-Quality, Nitro-Coated, All-Natural Non-GMO Seed Mix, From USA only

How to Plant Cover Crop Seed

Planting the seed is fairly simple. Since I had already cleaned up the gardens and rototilled the soil, the cover crop seeds were ready to plant. I did rake the gardens to produce a fairly level surface, since after rototilling the ground is uneven.

Simply spread the seed as evenly as possible in the garden according to the directions on the package. The 1-pound package I bought is supposed to cover 1000 square feet. My two gardens are about 500 square feet and 350 square feet. To me, the one pound of seed didn’t seem like enough, so I bought a second package. Time will tell how well I spread the seed.

After spreading the seed, just lightly rake it into the soil. It is recommended that you water it as well, unless enough rain is forecast to keep it moist.

I’m hoping this method will be successful to enhance the soil in time for next season. Planting a cover crop is also known as “green manure”.