We admit, the name “cover crops” doesn’t sound very glamorous. Yet, these crops play a pivotal role in our regenerative farming techniques to provide you with the most flavorful and nutritious fresh vegetables possible. How? Enriching our soil creates the ideal environment for the crops we grow.
As Bob Jones, Jr. puts it, “People want fresh vegetables that taste great, are nutrient-rich and free of toxins. To achieve that, everything—and I mean everything—is predicated on the health of the soil, especially the top two inches where the vegetable roots will grow.”
Cover Crop Definition
Here is the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) definition, which also shares the benefits of cover crops:
“Cover crops are grasses, legumes, and other forbs planted for erosion control, improving soil structure, moisture, and nutrient content, increasing beneficial soil biota, suppressing weeds, providing habitat for beneficial predatory insects, facilitating crop pollinators, providing wildlife habitat, and providing forage for farm animals. Furthermore, cover crops can provide energy savings by adding nitrogen to the soil and making more soil nutrients available, thereby reducing the need to apply fertilizer.”
At the Farmer Jones Farm, we use oats, rye, buckwheat, and sorghum, to name a few. We plant the mixture of choice in a field, allowing them to grow for a relatively short amount of time. The oats, for example, might grow to six to eight inches before we harvest the crop. This feeds the soil while also controlling the growth of weeds.
Why So Many Steps?
We agree that this is a lot of prep work and requires plenty of physical labor. However, this process allows us much less competition from weeds, reducing our dependence on chemicals.
In reality, we could just do a quick till and chemical pour, but that’s not what we’re about. Instead, we want to produce healthy, nutrient-dense products for you without harming the land for future use—and the more we do to keep the soil vibrant and alive, including using cover crops, the healthier the crops will be.
Best of the Season: Farm-Fresh Vegetables
To taste the difference and benefit from delicious nutrition, we invite you to order our Best of the Season box, which will be delivered directly to your home.
Depending upon the season, our farmer’s market delivery box may contain a mix of fresh lettuce, mixed greens, spinach, summer or fall squash, asparagus, beans and/or peas, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, a mixture of fresh beets, carrots, and/or kohlrabi, cabbage, potatoes, and the best microgreens: which could include mustard, sage, sorrel, basil, bulls blood, cutting celery, radish greens and more.