This report recounts the lessons learned from nine years of organic management of the Cannon Horticulture plots.

This week we planted cool-season cover crops on the Cannon Horticulture Plots: a mixture of grain rye, hairy vetch and Alsike clover. For a wealth of resources on how and why we use cover crops, have a look at our cover crops/crop rotation page.

Anyone who’s attended a Kerr Center horticulture workshop in the last umpteen years has been exposed to the idea that crop rotations confer numerous benefits both on the soils they’re carried out on, and on the crops that grow in those soils. Studies hot off the academic presses have just added more support to the notion.

“Even in organic no-till,” muses George Kuepper, “you can still get caught.” He’s surveying a small plot of ground that was tilled up for a demonstration for the May 9 plasticulture workshop. Heavy rains forced the workshop into the barn, and also gouged channels through the exposed soil. “The soil hasn’t been lost from the…

This publication outlines thoughts on, and experiences with, using cover crops as beneficial insect habitat in organic farming.