PJ Phelan: Everything you need to know about cover/catch crops
Sheep grazing a field of kale. Photo: Roger Jones
The benefits of well established and maintained cover/catch crops are well known: soil health, soil structure, ground cover and a source of winter forage.
Cover crops are sown to give good ground cover with no expectation of harvesting/grazing, whereas catch crops are sown to provide animal feed into and through the winter. Many cover crops can serve as catch crops.
