Cover Crop Planting Guide for Home Gardens & Raised Beds

Cover Crop Planting for Home Gardens & Raised Beds: Step-by-Step Guide

A Hensley's Seed Co. guide

Cover crops build fertility, smother weeds and more, and those benefits aren't just for big farms. Home gardens can gain just as much. This step-by-step guide walks you through adding cover crops to your own garden.

Adding a Cover Crop Rotation

A cover crop offield peasgrowing in a raised bed.

Most home gardeners work with far less space than a commercial farm, but cover crop rotations still fit in small plots. You might sow a bed or raised bed with a spring green manure blend in spring, cut it down in midsummer, and replant with fall greens. Or follow early peas and radishes with a summer sowing of buckwheat. Cover cropping works the same way at any size, and even the smallest garden can benefit.

How to Plant Cover Crops

Our cover crop comparison chart is a handy starting point, letting you compare cold hardiness and soil-building traits side by side.

1. Species Selection

   Several things shape which cover crop suits you best:

   • What you want for your soil: such as preventing erosion, suppressing weeds, adding nitrogen or loosening compacted ground. Each species brings its own strengths.
   • Timing; some cover crops do best in certain seasons.
   • Your hardiness zone; this matters most if you want a cover that dies over winter.
   • How you'll end it when the time comes (see termination below).

   A soil test can clarify your goals and point you toward the right cover crop. With goals in hand, the cover crop comparison chart can help you narrow down the best species for your beds.

2. Ground Preparation

   Clear weeds first so the cover crop starts in a clean bed. Rake or hoe shallowly across the whole bed to knock out tiny weeds that have just sprouted. For a weedy bed, lay a silage tarp to smother bigger weeds and create a stale seedbed. If the soil is compacted, loosen it with a broadfork, which aerates without dragging buried weed seeds up. Then rake the bed smooth and level.



Small beds and raised beds can be sown by hand.

3. Planting

   Direct Seeding: Sow cover crops by hand much as you would carrots, peas or spinach: rake or hoe shallow furrows 3–6" apart, drop in seed, and cover.

   As a rule of thumb, plant seed about twice as deep as the seed is thick. (For crop-specific sowing details, see our cover crop growing information ).

   A push seeder such as a Jang or Earthway can also sow rows of some cover crops, peas for example, in a hurry. See your seeder's manual for the crops it handles.

   
   
   Spreading cover crop seed with a hand-crank broadcast seeder.

   Broadcast Seeding: You can also broadcast cover crop seed, either by hand or with a hand-crank spreader like the Ev-n-Spred. That spreader suits beds 6' wide or wider and can sow into old crop residue. For narrower beds, just scatter seed by hand.

   Broadcasting suits small seeds such as clover and alfalfa best, but bigger seeds work too if you get them in good contact with soil and keep them moist afterward.

   After broadcasting, rake lightly with a tine rake to press seed into the soil. A light straw mulch over the seed also protects it, improves contact and holds in moisture.

   Seeding rate: Our growing information gives a range of seeding rates. When sowing in rows with few weeds, use the low end; when broadcasting or facing heavy weeds, go toward the high end.



A light pass with a tine rake after broadcasting helps seed contact the soil.

4. Water

   
   
   Seeds need steady moisture to sprout. A thin straw layer shields seed, improves soil contact and keeps moisture in.

   Keep seed evenly moist until it sprouts. Use a watering can, sprinkler, or hose with a gentle wand or nozzle.

   If you can't water the cover crop, hold off planting until the forecast calls for at least 1/2" of rain.

5. Termination

   
   
   Crimping a cover crop with a T-post.

   The last step is ending the cover crop, killing it so the bed can move on to the next planting. Plenty of methods work in a home garden:

   • Mowing with a string trimmer, push mower or scythe.
   • Tarping covers the crop and gradually starves it over time.
   • Crimping crushes the stems so the plant can no longer move water and nutrients, and it works best when the crop is in flower. A T-post and a length of rope will do the job, or you can use a purpose-built crimping bar.

   Different cover crops respond best to different methods. Our guide to ending cover crops in organic systems covers how to end each type of cover crop, with a chart of recommended methods by species.

Cover Cropping in Raised Beds

Everything above applies to raised beds as well. Get the bed weed-free and loose, sow the cover crop, and water as needed. Then end it with a method that fits the bed's size and height, such as string trimming, tarping or crimping, depending on the crop.