Cover Crops

Over the summer several school gardens ran trials on potential cover crops in partnership with the Center For Getting Things Started and NRCS. Cover crops are grown to feed and protect soils. They are an excellent way to compost in place, add nutrition, control weeds and add biomass to school garden beds during the summer when schools don’t have students. Through this project we can teach our students about soil management systems and the importance of building healthy soil. The big picture from this work is that garden teachers can be trained about utilizing cover crops and learn about the best varieties for their area in Hawaii. For fixing nitrogen into our soil beds we planted Sunnhemp, to help eradicate nematodes we planted Mustard, and along with Buckwheat all three can be used for biomass!