Fight Climate Change in Your Own Garden

From: Gardeners Supply - Friday Jul 09,2021 01:09 pm

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Combat climate change by planting cover crops

Our in-house gardening experts bring you this series of tips and actions you can take in your own garden, whatever its size, to help combat climate change.

This time, it's all about planting cover crops

"Farmers do it on a large scale, but even backyard and front yard gardeners can reap the benefits of growing cover crops, even in small spaces- and make a difference", says Deborah Miuccio, who manages both our Burlington test gardens and our national garden tester program. If you're not familiar with the term, cover crops are plants that are not meant to be harvested, yet should be planted year round. They stabilize soil (improving soil structures to help avoid erosion), add nutrients to it (they can even improve the soil in places where it has been completely depleted) and they sequester carbon from the air. "Basically, the idea is to never leave soil naked or bare at any time of the year," Miuccio says. "So, any time you have a spot in the garden you're not planting in- if you're in-between winter crops, but it's too soon for your summer crops- that's a time you can grow cover crops."

Image showing 8 layers of mulch: 1. Loose, moistened, aerated soil with added amendments (greensand, other minerals) 2. Cut vegetation (grass, weeds) 3. Nitrogen rich layer (manure, kelp meal, blood meal, compost starters, fresh food scraps) 4. Wet cardboard or newspaper with 6" overlap 5. Repeat nitrogen rich layer, weed free. 6. 6" - 12" brown material (leaves, dried grass, straw, coir) 7. 3" compost. 8. Mulch layer (straw, more leaves, coir mulch)

The best cover crops for home gardeners include: field peas, oats, annual rye and vetch. And you can always check with your local agricultural extension agent for a list of the best cover crops for your area. "They're easy to grow along with whatever else you're planting," Miuccio says, "so you can even interplant. Just cut down the cover crops once they grow to the point before they start to flower, leaving their roots in the soil to feed all that beneficial life underneath." For more information on cover crops, see our blog post: Weed and Feed with Cover Crops

Read more on how to combat climate change in your garden here:

Trees are the most efficient of plants when it comes to draining carbon dioxide from the air, with long-lived shrubs coming in second in their ability to sequester carbon. Long-lived woody perennials, like peonies, and ornamental grasses like pheasant’s tail (with extensive root systems) are also good options. But you can think of every plant— no matter the size — as a tiny carbon sink.

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