Violets and organic regenerative vegetable gardens - Ask Extension
Last year I began a search for native plants to use as green cover in an organic regenerative vegetable garden. My garden is in a community organic ga...
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Violets and organic regenerative vegetable gardens #929721
Asked April 26, 2026, 11:12 PM EDT
Last year I began a search for native plants to use as green cover in an organic regenerative vegetable garden. My garden is in a community organic garden, and they have rules about 'weeds'. Weeds cannot be more than 12 inches tall and cannot cover more than 50% of the plot.
They consider native plants weeds if the seeds can spread into neighboring plots. However, I would like to practice regenerative gardening and need an annual green cover to do so. Native plants would be ideal as they would also serve to draw beneficial insects to take care of the insect pests. I tried Wood Sorrel last year, but they didn't like it. This year I settled on violets, Viola sororia, as a free green cover. I liked the fact that it is also edible and is therefore a vegetable. But the Compliance Manager does not like my violets as the plants have spread into her plot which neighbors mine, and she spent three hours weeding them out. Her garden has bare dusty ground free of weeds.
I also planted winter rye, radishes, and Crimson clover as winter green cover, but she didn't like that either, requesting that I take it out before it seeds although I was hoping to save the seeds for fall planting. What I would like is information that I can use in addressing the citation I received, explaining what I am doing and the benefits of violets specifically in vegetable gardens:
1. Suggestions for less aggressive walkable native green covers;
2. Research citations about use of violets specifically in vegetable gardens;
3. Research citations about use of violets in regenerative agriculture.
4. How do we change bare ground gardening practices into regenerative practices in a 25 sq. foot plot.
Thanks!
Howard County Maryland
Expert Response
It would help all involved (the plot managers and any gardeners using a plot) to have the administrators define more clearly what they would regulate as a "weed." Any plant growing where it is not wanted is a weed, and one person's food plant (for instance, shiso, mint, water spinach, perilla, etc.) can absolutely be a weed in other plots if it spreads by runners or by seed. Unless a plant is sterile or harvested before seeds are ripe, any plant -- even forgotten tomatoes, squash, and strawberries -- can potentially spread from seed and become a "weed" in another gardener's plot. Granted, weedy plants that are native, like violets, are not as concerning form an ecological perspective, but the garden managers do not seem to be taking ecological value into account, and that's their prerogative since this is a managed landscape and not a natural/restorative planting.
As you have discovered, not many cover crops (at least among the traditional species like buckwheat, rye, crimson clover, etc.) stay at or under only 12 inches tall. In our opinion, violets would be a suitable alternative if they don't compete too aggressively (being perennials) with the roots of the crop plants in-season, but we are not aware of any research on their use in vegetable gardens or regenerative agriculture. (A food forest is a much more layered and complex system than what community food garden plots can usually work with.) Adding to the plant selection difficulty is the need to tolerate foot traffic, since many groundcovers are not very tolerant of being stepped-on regularly or repeatedly. Perhaps a wood chip path in those instances would be more practical, and as the wood chips decay they will add beneficial organic matter to the soil (as any organic mulch will).
If the garden admins won't allow for cover crops to be used, we're not sure there's an easy solution for more sustainable year-round plot maintenance other than mulching bare soil with leaf litter, wood chips, pine needles, straw, or some other natural material. Cover crops help to maintain or improve soil health, which is in turn important for supporting plant health of the crops being grown, and we would think weeding out any stray cover crop seedlings would be no worse than a gardener having to weed out any other unwanted plant seedlings brought in by wind, water, or wildlife depositing seeds.
Miri
As you have discovered, not many cover crops (at least among the traditional species like buckwheat, rye, crimson clover, etc.) stay at or under only 12 inches tall. In our opinion, violets would be a suitable alternative if they don't compete too aggressively (being perennials) with the roots of the crop plants in-season, but we are not aware of any research on their use in vegetable gardens or regenerative agriculture. (A food forest is a much more layered and complex system than what community food garden plots can usually work with.) Adding to the plant selection difficulty is the need to tolerate foot traffic, since many groundcovers are not very tolerant of being stepped-on regularly or repeatedly. Perhaps a wood chip path in those instances would be more practical, and as the wood chips decay they will add beneficial organic matter to the soil (as any organic mulch will).
If the garden admins won't allow for cover crops to be used, we're not sure there's an easy solution for more sustainable year-round plot maintenance other than mulching bare soil with leaf litter, wood chips, pine needles, straw, or some other natural material. Cover crops help to maintain or improve soil health, which is in turn important for supporting plant health of the crops being grown, and we would think weeding out any stray cover crop seedlings would be no worse than a gardener having to weed out any other unwanted plant seedlings brought in by wind, water, or wildlife depositing seeds.
Miri
