Watch this quick video to learn which types of cover crops to choose for your garden, and how to use them to improve your garden soil…

Cover crops (also sometimes called “green manures”) are a great way to nourish and protect your soil when you aren’t growing regular garden crops. They can also help suppress weeds and improve your soil structure.

You can plant a cover crop in the late summer as a ground cover for the winter months, or any other time of year when you will have an area of your garden sitting unoccupied by garden crops for a few months. Many cover crops are designed to be tilled or dug into the soil before planting other crops, thus providing nutrients and feeding your soil microbes and other critters.

Best of all, you don’t have to be a large-scale farmer to reap the benefits of cover cropping – even small gardeners can use them with great effects! The short video below explains how to plant cover crops for best results, and shares how to choose the right cover crop for planting in your garden, based on your climate and soil type.