Details of how I am using subterranean clover as a living mulch under my tomatoes this year--including why I cut the clover back, and a little bit of myth busting / clarification on its nitrogen-fixing properties.
Thank you for sharing your experience using cover crops. I just planted a clover seed tri-mix I originally purchased for a lawn in my pepper bed a few days ago and now after listening to your experience I'm more confident with the process so I'll be doing this with some of my other beds as well now. Also good to know that about Mustard! My free straw with goat manure mulch supply has dried up temporarily. I'll probably just go with a living mulch from now on since there's so many benefits!
If I had regular access soiled bedding I’d use it for sure. I’ve used everything from paper mulch to plain grass clippings, terminated cover crops smother with leaves, my “magic compost mix” of mowed-over leaves and grass together, and living mulches. They’ve all got their pros and cons. I think as long as you’re mulching, you’re in the right direction.
Thanks for this video, really interesting. Please could you comment on what effect this might have on the incidence of slug damage to the vegetable crop? We've had a terrible time with slugs here in the UK after a very wet winter and spring so doing anything that might encourage slugs and snails makes me nervous. Thanks again.
Hi! My beds with the living clover mulch haven’t had any slug issues, while other beds where I had used cover crop debris and leaves had TONS of slug damage. The only disadvantage for me so far with the clover has been weed pressure from Black Medic.
For the past 3 years I maintained a perennial cover crop of thyme and oregano in 3 of my beds. No weeds, when I plant my crops everything takes off within days, not weeks. Dr Elaine Ingham got e started. Have a small channel, Brian's Garden if interested. Stay Well!!!
Jess from YT No Till did a trial where he planted in pepper? squash? seedlings into a bed of perennial white dutch clover. The seedings struggled, became stunted & didn't finish the season. Interesting this seems to work with an annual clover provided it is cut back in the immediate area of the plant. Have you trialed for maximum diameter around the plants? I am wondering if planting seedlins within a leaf mould mulch of 6-10 in diam, with the rest of the bed clover covercropped might work without having to cut back the annual clover? This bending over crap must stop.
My back related so hard to that last statement 😂. I’ve only ever planted kale into a perennial clover, and it did really well, but never tried the squash and pepper that it sounds like he did. I haven’t trialed different diameters but I have tried a TON of various mulch techniques…I should do a comparison video of which method I prefer with what.
@WellGroundedGardens Please consider doing a trial of various green mulches in one bed of same plant seedlings so we could see the results side by side, so to speak. There is a very pricey no-mow mini-perennial clover for lawns which would might eliminate the need to cut, but may have the same competition problems as Jess faced due to its perennial nature (and also spreading?) Seems some annual veg can't handle it.
Thank you for the video! It is necessary to kill the plants with black tarpaulin at the end of the season, right? I have also had clover growing in my garden, not covered with a tarpaulin at the end and the plants grew out of the rootstocks stronger the following year because they had apparently survived the winter. Even if the vegetable plants outcompete the clover, doesn't the clover still absorb some water and nutrients and the vegetable plants don't grow quite as much as if you mulch with dead plants?
Great Qs, the answers to which I'm also interested in ! Meanwhile, here's some things I've picked up on some of em, and someone else to also learn from who's experimenting with living mulches ( and pathways) quite a bit :" Farmer Jesse" Frost of Rough Draft Farmstead who's content on YT is mainly on the 'No Till Growers Podcast'/ channel. As for the plants competing for stuff : as Jesse and others are learning and sharing, the very best thing for soil is living ( photosynthesizing) plants in it and generally the more the merrier. They feed the soil life and thus the fertility. Esp. ones you're not harvesting from, & esp. perennials, will be providing more than they are taking, it seems. BUT yes, that hyper-sharing of water, air flow & sometimes maybe some nutrients etc. can be an issue, too. Jesse has done some videos specifically to the topic which I highly recommend ! NOT "knocking" this channel by ANY of that. Just adding to it !
I don’t think my reply posted for some reason-trying again, and apologies if this is a duplicate! In theory the clover itself will winter kill in my climate, but the black medick won’t, and I am going to use a black tarp to really thoroughly kill everything off. I’ll do the same with the mustard in my other bed. In theory the clover does absorb some water but I’ve found that their ability to reduce evaporation more than makes up for it-when I plant into my beds with cover crops the soil is much more moist than my “bare” beds planted the same day. They also help to absorb heavy rainfall instead of letting it wash away the soil, meaning it can “bank” more of any rainfall event.
@@WellGroundedGardens Thank you for your reply! In your answer, you compared your bed with living mulch with an unmulched bed. But wouldn't a bed that has been mulched (not too thickly) with grass clippings, for example, protect the bed even better from evaporation (by covering it more completely), protect the soil from being washed away in heavy rain through direct contact with the ground and enrich the soil with nutrients, including nitrogen, through decomposition? I'm asking because you may have already tested both methods and found an advantage to the living mulch variant that I can't think of now.
@Blackhuf I should have said-slugs. I do use things like dried leaves as mulch and I like it a lot for many crops, but it attracts slugs like crazy, and they love bean plants in particular. I have a ton of bean plants in this bed so I went with living mulch. My potato bed as an example just has dried leaves on it.
This year I used subterranean clover (an annual type). It spread quickly but it’s visually identical to black medic as it establishes 😬. At my old place I used Dutch white and it was a bit easier to control weeds with that variety. It took two years to come in but then I loved it and kept it in place: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Lkd9S--1-kM.html
Correct on the role of terminating-I did a whole description of that in the last part of the video since it’s a common misunderstanding. The cutting back I did around each plant releases a bit of nitrogen but in general this approach is better thought of as a mulch that then replenishes nitrogen at the end of the year.
