Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... For an Earth-friendly garden, keep a succession of plants in the soil by planting cover crops. These are plants grown to improve the soil rather than for ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – No one wants to think of harvest’s end as the vegetable garden reaches peak, but now’s the time to plant over-winter cover crops to improve your soil for next season. If you’re not ...

AMES, Iowa – As vegetable growers and commodity farmers reach the end of the growing season and harvest their crops, faculty at Iowa State University are pushing for greater awareness of cover crops ...

In the fall, you might be tempted to remove the dead plant material, till your garden soil a bit, and put your garden to bed for the winter without another thought. However, you can also grow cover ...

Before you put your garden to bed, consider giving it a winter blanket—aka, a cover crop. Sowed in the fall, these cold-hardy plants work hard to improve soil throughout winter by decreasing ...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Called cover crops, they top the list of tasks U.S. farmers are told will build healthy soil, help the environment and fight climate change. Yet after years of incentives and ...

Planting dry beans into spring cover crops could be a measure to protect young plants from damaging weather conditions like wind or hail. Dry beans are susceptible to damage from wind and other ...

Establishing winter cover crops after or between harvests can be a great way to preserve soil structure, protect against erosion and produce biomass that feeds the soil ecology. However, if you’re in ...

According to the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, an initiative aimed at reducing nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into Iowa’s ...