Building Soil Health with Cover Crops and Green Manures

The Living Mulch Strategy Empty garden beds are an ecological waste — uncovered soil loses moisture rapidly, erodes in rain, and offers no benefit to the soil food web. Cover crops address all of these problems: they protect soil from erosion and compaction, suppress weeds, prevent nutrient leaching, and when incorporated into the soil (green manuring), add significant organic matter and sometimes nitrogen. A well-chosen cover crop can do more to improve soil health in a single season than yea…