Whenever other farmers or people who study farming come here, they usually comment on how little bare space there is on our farm. Ken plants LOTS of cover crops for green manure. Green manures are crops like rye, peas and oats, clover, and buckwheat. Some, like clover or field peas, fix nitrogen;others like rye break up hard soil. They all help the soil, they prevent erosion, suppress weeds, and moderate soil temperature.
Ken usually determines around this time in the season which crops to mulch and where he will plant green manures. When we get rain and the cover crops and green manures will germinate, he plants more of them. In hot dry years he does more mulching.
We also work to have blooming plants to attract beneficial insects. Beneficials are those insects who either kill insects like potato beetles or are pollinators like native and honey bees.
Here is a photo from our niece - she liked all the butterflies in our flower garden.
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