Why You NEED Cover Crops in Your Market Garden Grow Your Own Fertilizer!

All right guys, today we are talking about the future of organic farming and the past. We're talking about cover crops. And with me, I'm really happy to introduce Pierre-Antoine, so we can call him Pierre And Pierre-Antoine, I've known him for a long time. He's an agronomist, he's a teacher of organic farming, and he's an entrepreneur, and he's a farmer. And I wanna start first of all by talking about why. There's a big big reason why on a micro scale level farm you would want to include the cover crops. First of all, they generate on-farm fertility and that is something, it brings autonomy to the farm, it brings this whole idea of being able to fertilize without buying inputs from the outside and in itself this is a really interesting reason why. But With Pierre, what I want to talk about is also at the agronomical... Agronomical level, it also brings also other highlights that are very important for a biological system. And I don't know, Pierre, if you could perhaps share one or two reasons why they make a difference in the overall soil health of the farm. Yeah, they do. There's many functions that green manures will do on the farm. Sometimes I'm questioning myself, is it green manure or cover crops? Yeah, that's always the big question. All right. I prefer to say cover crops. Since it covers the soil, you get less erosion of your soil in place. Green manure, for me, it's more when you put some new nitrogen into the system on the farm. So you have a lot of legumes in your cover crops here. You have some peas. I see some vetch also, I think. You mix both. You mix both. So that's a good way to put some new nitrogen in the system. So you will be less dependent of nitrogen inputs outside of the farm. So you can mostly get like, I don't know, maybe 50 kilograms per hectare of new nitrogen. So if you're looking to fertilize some beets, for example, you can have half the nitrogen you need for this crop next year with the cover crop seed. Yeah, just that. There's also benefits from the microorganisms in the soil. Maybe we can dig later on to see how the roots function. So it will help to have better microorganisms in the soil. And you will also have a new input of carbon. So it's good for organic matter's percentage too. So it plays all these different roles and obviously there's going to be a lot of conversations today about all this, how we do them, the differences. But why don't we just start with digging up and looking at the root systems. That's what I like to do. Okay, so we'll dig. Oh, there we go. Oh my god. I think I got it. I think I got it. I think I got it. Wow. So here we dug about six inches. Wow. And you see all these roots? Yep. And I can already see the nodes. Yeah. You see the nodes there? Yeah, where the rhizobium lives. So they are fixing nitrogen from the soil atmosphere right now. So that's where the nitrogen will be input in your green manure, in your cover crops. But they're not only in the roots, they're also in the stem, in the leaves. So that's when it will decompose, that you will bring new nitrogen to your system. But first thing I saw is the soil structure. Yeah, it's nice. It's amazing, not nice, amazing. Amazing. Yeah, it's like, I don't know if it's the right term, but it's like a couscous. Yeah. Okay, but not the small one, you know, the medium or large one. So, I mean, it's fantastic. And I think it's small, it's like a sandy soil in here. No, I'm so happy that you say that, Péa, because, you know, our farm is, this is year 20. Year 20. Year 20 of bio-intensive cropping with, you know, double, triple, it's a lot of rotation, a lot of, and the soil is amazing. It was not like that at first, 20 years ago. No, it's been improving over the years. And I think when we decided to add cover crops systematically, so we have them in our rotation system, I think it makes a big difference. Okay. And in your rotation system, is it like 25% of... So, if people have read the Market Gardener, my book, that's the rotation that we designed in 2008, so it's in the book. So, the way it goes is that you have field blocks that are botanical families, and so botanical families will rotate, and half of the field blocks have cover crops in them for half a season. So that means that we have about a third of the garden that's always in cover crops at different times, and it's moving around. All right, okay. So you talk about botanical families. So that's another function that cover crops can play. It can help reduce some soil-borne disease since you're having different families in your system. So that's another great way to use it. Is it? Am I wrong, or it's like a loam, is it a loam? L'homme, yeah, c'est un l'homme. It's a loam that has, you see how also, I want to show you this, like I keep presenting this when I do conferences, but you have one. You bring it on stage? Yeah. I'd like to, I pick pictures. You see now there is a big movement of no-till farms, no dig. Yeah. And then when I go to these farms, I will dig and I'll have one good layer. A small layer. Okay. All right. And then here it's like throughout, you see it's consistent from start to finish, it's one color and that's what you want, that's what you need. And it's really easy to put your shovel in the soil, you don't get to put so much energy in it. So I'm happy that you're recognizing it because this is something that we've been really proud about. And we mostly focus on the first 20 centimeters of the soil since the more roots are there. But for drainage, thank you my friend, you need a good soil structure way down to 50-60 centimeters so the rainfall and the excess of rain will just go down. Yeah, we're flush. And flush, yeah. So if on your farm you do the test shovel, the shovel test, which is a really good test that you should do, you dig a hole like we just did and you look at the profile, okay? And if what you're seeing is a good layer or a good first part and then a not so great one, This needs to change. It needs to be at least 10 inch, ideally, 10 inches like what we have here, of really good uniform brown looking soil. And you need to have roots that can shoot down to all of that area. And I think the cover crops, they play a big role into ensuring this year after year. And when it's a mix like that, you get different layers of roots. So it's not only on top of the soil, you get to your 10 inches, 20 inches easily with the legumes in the system. So you will be building organic matter way down, better soil structure way down, so it helps to improve your soil health like a lot more deeper. So that's a great way to use a mix like that. I remember when we opened our school in the greenhouse, they put the soil back with bobcats. Yeah, yeah. Okay. They took it out, they brought it in back. So you imagine the compaction? Yeah. So we put green manure, water, compost, and it took some years, but now we have a good soil structure. Since in greenhouse, everything goes faster than in the field. So you have to consider it. Green manure, I think it's a key, and 20 years ago, conventional farming was not using it. But now they do a lot, with different strategies, and on big, large-scale farms, now they're using drone to seed it. To seed the cover crop, wow. Yeah, so it's not the same level, but it's really great functions, as we said before. And with your shovel, you can just appreciate, if you go just like that around, and oh my god, it's like butter. That's it, you just see it, and between the rows. Ah, compaction. Compaction. Did you see that? So, you're more heavy than me. Ah, come on, no, it's, yeah, a little bit. You're right, it's all this good wine from the old mill. Oh. Yeah, but you're right, like these permanent beds, it really makes a difference. Yeah, controlled traffic farming will also help to improve your soil structure. And when you combine it with green manure like that, man, it's amazing. The other thing that we can appreciate is the height of your green manure. I don't know when it has been sown. It was about six weeks ago. Only six weeks ago? Yeah, only six weeks ago. We don't have the same climate. Yeah, yeah, here it's a special farm, it grows fast here. And you can also appreciate the way the soil has some difference. Here it's homogeneous, I don't know how to say it. No, we've had different mixes. You see these two plates? Oh, okay, that's why. These were different, and we did a different... We added down there Phacélie, which is the first time we do use. But from my understanding, PA, it's like... Over the years when we started we had just we would put like rye and and and vetch we would put clover uh and peas but now we're kind of like peas with oats, peas with oats was a classic, but now we're trying to mix as much as possible because we're thinking why would we limit ourselves, buckwheat too, huh? Buckwheat too took a first frost but it was the first to establish, so you might have some some seeds, but... It's not a challenge for you next year. No. So you do your own mix, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we buy everything separately, and then we just mix it. I can show you where we do that. Yeah. And then we, Maudelaine, really differently from what I do, Maudelaine is my wife, she runs the farm, she drills them in using a seeder. Oh, okay. Yeah, so she really wants to have perfect density, and she drills it in. Okay, so what you're telling me now is that she gave it, as much love as a crop, a cash crop, because it's not a cash crop. It's an investment crop. Exactly. Okay, so you don't get cash from it this year, but you invest in your soil health, so you will benefit from it later. Okay, so Pierre, one thing that's, you know, over the years, you know, I've trained folks on the farm, and now we're at the Market Gardener Institute. We're talking about this to a global audience, but you've been... I've been teaching this to a lot of young growers for so many years now. Is there still resistance on a small farm to use cover crops? The answer is a bit sad, but I think they don't see it as a cash crop. So you have limited time, so you cannot do everything you want to do. So sometimes you have to focus on what will bring you some money from doing this job. So I think that's why they just evacuate it. And then you're there to teach them that this needs to be the fundamental. of how they do it. This needs to be planned as other crops will be. There's a lot of biomass here. There's a lot of nitrogen in it. So it won't be expensive. You can see it as an expense. You have to put some money in it, but it will bring you back some money since you will have a better soil. So that's a way I think you should think about cover crops. So think about it as an investment, not as a defense. Expense. Expense. Oh, man. That's good, man. I've always thought that when you show it, people will understand. One of the best things I've learned was crop rotation from Elliot Coleman. Yeah. Because I was reading his book and he was stressing the importance of it. And we decided to listen to him because he had more experience and he was more, you know, ahead of the curve. And the fact that from the start of the farm, we had a crop rotation and a cover crop program, I would say to you explains why. Why what you saw? It's a beautiful soil structure you have here. As Elliot said once, why buy some organic matter outside the system when the main purpose of farms is to grow livestock, is to grow organic matter? So that's what you have here right now. So I don't know what was the crop before, You put the Green Manure here. Garlic. Okay, makes sense now. Garlic was nice there. But I'm sure that what you will grow here next year will be awesome too. So you will cut by half the needs of nitrogen in the system. So it will be awesome next year. I want to show you something else. Yeah. You know, one of the things, Pierre, that we were talking about is, you know, the reasons why. I think also you brought up the idea that it's really cost effective. It is because we think about 50 to 150 dollars per hectares. So that's less than a cent per square foot, so it's really cheap to get some new nitrogen in your system to have less soil erosion, to have a better soil structure, more organic matters in the system, so it's not expensive, it's a low-cost input system, and one thing that I saw on your farm right now, late September, is you have more. Cover crops, then cash crop right now on the farm. Even if it's late in September, I see here the biomass is still short, but you cover it. It's going to be there for the winter, and that's why we do it. We want to make sure that each field blocks have a cover for the winter. And if we're harvesting super late, we'll put a tarp. That's it. But otherwise, as soon as we can, we'll drill these cover crops in. Only on the beds. Only on the beds. This is particular, some folks do it in the aisles also. What we want is to really make sure that we always see where our beds are. And the way we destroy the cover crops, it took us a few years to figure that out, but the way we do it is really simple. First of all, it involves having a flail mower. Mm. So… Flail mower is an absolute must in my opinion. You could have a weed whacker, but it would be like so much long to cut everything down. Because the flail mower will take something that's quite high and cut it into small pieces. Okay, so we're gonna mulch it. That will create a mulch that way. And then for all these years, PA, what the problem we had was usually people will till them in using what we would have as a rotor tiller. But we want to avoid as much tillage as we can on the farm. We're in a minimal tillage practice, so what we do is we mow and then we use the soil from the aisle and we shoot it onto... The bed, so over the mulch. Okay, you're shaping the bed with your cover crops under it. Yeah, with your cover crops, and then we put a tarp. Nice. And so that way, we're letting the organic matter get digested by the soil and the earthworms. And usually, after two weeks, we remove the tarp. And it's ready. There's nothing anymore. Okay. Like that big fat biomass. Yeah. It's gone. It's gone. So where is it? In the earthworm's stomach. Yeah, man. And the bacteria. Yeah. Fungus too. It's crazy. You really see it and you're like, oh my God. See? And between the rows, do you put straw in it or? That's the plan. We put ramul wood chip and we made an amazing video about ramul wood chip, you can check that out. And we put ramul wood chip on about a quarter of the farm every year, because it's a lot of labor. We put some straw and or we'll leave nothing. That's the worst case scenario. But that's how we do it here, and that's how I teach it at the Institute. Nice. Okay, Pierre, since you're here, I so want us to talk about the fertility program of this farm and fertility program in general, and that's in the next video.