Cover Crops: Your Garden’s New Best Friend!

Cover crops are crops that are grown before or after the vegetable crop and not harvested as produce. Instead, they are terminated by cutting or other methods and then left to decompose in the garden to help you build soil fertility, improve soil structure, reduce erosion, suppress weeds, and increase microbial activity and soil organic content.

In this workshop, participants will learn from the Extension Master Gardener Volunteers of Chatham County about the many different legumes and grasses we use as cover crops, what they can do for your soil and garden, and how to include them in your garden planning.

After the lecture, we will head outside to the Extension Master Gardener Demonstration Garden at the Chatham County Agricultural & Conference Center to see some cover crops and methods for planting and terminating. You will leave with some specific ideas about cover crops that can become your garden’s new best friend!

Host or Publisher N.C. Cooperative Extension, Chatham County