Cover Crops: Sowing Seeds for the Soil
Posted in Learning Experiences on September 25 2014, by Ursula Chanse
Ursula Chanse is the Director of Bronx Green-Up and Community Horticulture and Project Director for NYC Compost Project, hosted by The New York Botanical Garden. For more information about these programs and upcoming workshops and events, visit Bronx Green-Up.
Recently, on a sunny Saturday at Taqwa Community Farm in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx, just up the hill from Yankee Stadium, we worked with Farm School NYC students (a program of Just Food) to prepare several areas for planting and sowing cover crops.
As we head steadily into fall, many of our warm season vegetable crops have slowed down, and at Bronx Green-Up, we start encouraging the use of fall cover crops in the community gardens, school gardens, and urban farms in the Bronx. Cover crops, also known as green manures, are not grown to feed the gardeners, but rather to nourish the soil. They are perfect to sow after pulling out your tomatoes, peppers, corn, and beans.