Most gardeners in summer have more than they can handle. Give your summer garden a break.
One excellent technique is the use of summer leguminous cover crops. Legume cover crops crowd out weeds, associate with root bacteria to fix nitrogen, and grow deep roots, which improves the soil. Cowpeas or black-eyed peas (Vigna unguiculata) grow furiously during the summer and can be sown just about anywhere. Indigenous to Africa, where they were developed as a seed and fodder crop, cowpeas spread to Europe, India, and Asia more than 2,000 years ago.
Quick Methods for Best Results:
1) Add seed and inoculant in a bucket
2) Add 1 part sugar to 2 parts water to make a syrup
3) Add syrup to coat seed with inoculant
4) Soak soil to be seeded
5) Sow seed densely in rows or by hand and lightly incorporate
6) Wait and germination after 5 days
Cowpeas are drought tolerant, so little water is needed for a successful crop. Most varieties require 6-7 weeks to flower. Flowering is the best time to take down your cover crop either by hand, pruners, electric hedgers, or weed eater. During flowering plants shift into reproductive mode, killing during this time will reduce vegetative regrowth. Give yourself a few days for dry down before fall planting. Even if you don’t grow fall crops, sow some peas grow and let winter take its course.
