June 22, 2021 : Ode to Cover Crops

​I am a farmer who deeply loves using cover crops in my fields. By fixing nitrogen and adding organic matter, green covers are essential in building our sandy, nutrient poor soils. Although it can sometimes be difficult to establish a good stand of cover in the field (all depending on the season, the type of seed being used, whether it gets enough water, etc.), when you do it right, it feels like you won the agricultural lottery. Not because these covers transfer directly into dollars (although, I can use the field peas in bouquets!), but because you know you are treating the land right. 

Yesterday, I watched a monarch butterfly dance through a strong cover crop of peas and land on a nearby milkweed. Bees hum through the crimson clover, and ladybugs crawl over the delicate purple blooms of hairy vetch. When I reach into the soil below these covers, I find worms and moist dirt. The wild tangle of covers (usually in our fields inevitably mixed with a smattering of weeds) stands in sharp contrast to our long rows of vegetables and flowers. 

These contrasts in an ag field are the sign of a healthy farm. In order to succeed as growers we need both disorderliness and organization, wildness and cultivation.

So this is a week of honoring the cover crops: Praise to hairy vetch so thick the flail mower can barely knock it down! Three cheers for the beautiful purple field peas, excellent at adding nitrogen and filling bouquets! And glory be to sweet yellow clover and oats, happy place for bees and other beneficials!