permaculture

["Guy Clark" <guyclark@socket.net>]

Lawrence et. al.-
        I remember a column in Hort Ideas (perhaps THE most useful
magazine/newsletter related to gardening/farming) that was about cover
crops. It was in the last couple of years. This study found that the
combination that was the best, and incidentally had not been included in
the original study, was rye and hairy vetch. The study reported on nitrogen
fixation, coverage percentage, and biomass I believe. I will look for the
exact article and send more later.
        I have used hairy vetch as a mulch crop in my garlic in years past 
and it
worked very well; but I had to trim it out of the garlic 3 or 4 times
before harvest which is a lot of work when you are growing 3,000 heads of
garlic. I used the pulled vetch as mulch in between beds or around crops
like tomatoes, or even around trees.
Namaste',
Guy Clark