"As You Like It" Cover Crop Blend: High Biomass, Nitrogen Fixing Legumes

This high biomass blend is predominantly comprised of legumes: fava, field/forage pea and hairy vetch, with oats also included for fast growing weed suppression. It was inspired bya Natural Resources Conservation Service pamphlet on fava bean, which described it as “a typical high biomass cover crop mix for Central California.”We could not find this mix commercially available, so decided to make it ourselves! This cover crop blend ecologically Ecologically, this blend works as follows: Fava beans function scaffold species with tall rigid stems and provide high, late season biomass. They fix nitrogen in the soil. Peas and hairy vetch climb the favas and oats, extending the overall canopy established. Both crops fix nitrogen. Oats provide early vigor, weed suppression, and carbon for residue balance. This blend can be sown from mid-fall through early spring. Seeds are certified organic.