On this week’s episode, the guys discuss growing cover crops to improve garden soil health. Hoss recently added a complete line of cool and warm-season cover crops on their website, and the guys are excited to share these with the audience this week. Growing cover crops has many benefits including nitrogen fixation, soil building, weed suppression, erosion control, pest and disease suppression among others. They discuss the five cool-season cover crops that should be planted in fall, giving the crops enough time to establish before winter frost arrives. These include crimson clover, hairy vetch, Austrian winter peas, winter rye and tillage radish. Clover, vetch and winter peas are all great nitrogen-fixers which sequester nitrogen from the atmosphere and add it to your garden soil. For harder, clay soils, the guys recommend using tillage radish to aerate hard soils and improve drainage in areas that hold too much moisture.

On the Show & Tell segment this week, they talk about their sweet potatoes that are still growing. They planted these in the middle of June and sweet potatoes usually require about 100 days to maturity. However, their plants were fairly weak when planted, which may delay this time to harvest. Travis brought a few small ones that he dug and mentions that they probably still need another 30 days or so to get larger. Travis also shows a photo of his Ambrosia sweet corn that was recently side-dressed with Chilean Nitrate and hilled with the High Arch Wheel Hoe. Greg shows a photo of his Pro-Cut Sunflowers that have started to bloom and are adding lots of color and pollinators to his fall garden.

On the Q&A segment, they answer questions about blood meal and baby lima beans. Greg mentions that blood meal is a fast, organic nitrogen source that can be used for heavy feeders like cabbage. He also mentions that he would probably not use it when close to harvest time. Travis addresses the baby lima bean issue and mentions that baby lima beans are a specific variety that have been bred to produce smaller beans.
Tool of the Week
Dibble Wheel Attachment