It’s 60 F here and while there is still a bunch of snow it’s melting quickly.
The snow has mostly melted at the soil surface in the fabric grow bags and the Hairy Vetch and Winter Rye winter cover crop is looking very happy!
For more info scroll earlier up the thread.
I peeked under the snow and found the Hairy Vetch and Winter Rye! I covered them back up after looking.
I’d never tried to grow a winter cover crop before and had never heard of Hairy Vetch. I thought the name sounded very funny. Discovered it is very good at fixing nitrogen from the air. It’s much smaller than the Rye but seems to grow fine twining around the larger sturdy Rye stalks. It will self-seed easily but I added both to the compost before their seeds dropped.
For others here’s a closeup of the Hairy Vetch.
Winter Rye and Hairy Vetch cover crop from about a month ago. I planted these last Fall. This photo was just before I dug them up and added it all to the large compost system.
The almost mature seed heads on the Rye were exquisitely beautiful!
The smaller plants with the purple flowers are the Hairy Vetch which fixes nitrogen in the soil from the air. Zoom in at the bottom to see the Vetch.
First year trying a winter cover crop in my 30 gallon fabric bags I have on rolling platforms on our deck. And they have germinated!
Seeded with winter rye and hairy vetch. Hairy vetch is a legume and should fix nitrogen. I’ll dig them back into the soil sometime in May. Maybe earlier if the vetch looks like it might go to seed.
These rolling bags on the deck are great for enabling my partner with serious spinal-related disabilities to still do gardening!
Stephen Bannasch (316 ppm)