Winter Cover Crops at Opal Creek Farm

What’s growing at the farm in winter? Cover Crops!

This year’s cover crops growing at Opal Creek Farm: oats, bell beans, field peas, and hairy vetch.

If you visit the farm during February or March, you will find lush green fields. What’s growing is not for us to harvest or eat, but rather to feed the soil. What we are growing are cover crops, crops planted to cover the soil and enhance the organic matter.

Farmer Brian talks about the cover crops planted at Opal Creek Farm over the winter season.

As organic farmers, we need to keep our soil fertile and filled with nutrients like nitrogen. We don’t apply synthetic fertilizers, so to add nutrients to the soil, we use cover crops and compost. In 2024, we planted a cover crop consisting of oats, bell beans, field peas, and hairy vetch. The roots of these plants aerate the soil and eventually break down, helping to add organic matter and nutrients. Legume cover crops like the peas and vetch we planted take nitrogen from the air and deposit into the soil, adding to soil fertility. 

The cover crops also add to the organic matter in the soil. We want high organic matter in order to absorb and hold onto the moisture from the winter rains. So far in 2025, we’ve received about 8 inches of rain. Storing this rain in the soil will allow us to do our dry farming method.