This is a Vegetable Farmers and their Innovative Cover Cropping Techniques video clip.
Watch video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW8ZahOVJ04
Featuring
Will Stevens, Golden Russett Farm. Shoreham, VT.
Audio Text
Another way I’m working legumes into my rotation is using hairy vetch. This was a field of winter squash last year that I over-seeded the hairy vetch on the fourth of July last year and then rotary hoed it in, and it was dry then so I irrigated that in. The vetch is able to live in the shade throughout the summer as the squash vines over it. Then at harvest time, we come in and we harvest, frost takes the squash out, the vetch continues to grow in a typical fall for a couple months, way into November in some years.
So now it’s the end of May about 10 months have gone by, it’s not quite budded up yet, but I’m ready to use the field so I’ll be plowing this down. Traditionally organic systems have recommended 50% of your acreage into vegetable production and 50% out of production in a given year. If I can do 40% as a cover crop fallow and 60% vegetable production, that’ll be good for me.
This video project was funded in part by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (USDA).
