Home Gardeners: Take Cover this Winter!

Fall is here and winter is soon approaching. Have you prepared and protected your garden for next spring? If not, the Darke Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) can help.

The Darke SWCD has a variety of informational materials on gardening and cover crops. This year the Darke SWCD has introduced two cover crop mixes, Fall Mix and Winter Mix, for use in your garden. Our Fall Mix is a blend of oats and radishes. The advantage of this mix is that it is low maintenance and will frost kill in December. The Winter Mix consists of cereal rye and radishes. This blend is winter hardy, meaning the cereal rye will survive through the winter. In the spring you will have to kill the cereal rye by tillage, herbicide application or shading. The benefits of these two cover crop mixes include weed suppression, nutrient cycling, improved organic matter, reduced soil erosion, and breaking up compaction. Not to mention they help to feed your soil microbes and earth worms. Consider trying a one pound bag today

These two cover crop mixes can be purchased for $3.00 a pound at the Darke SWCD office located at 1117 South Towne Court, Greenville, Ohio, by calling 937-548-1752 or visiting the our website at www.darkeswcd.com.