QuickTake:

These will help your soil, and if you want, provide food. Crimson clover and fava beans are especially versatile possibilities.

The most important things you plant in your garden are vegetables and fruits. The next most important seeds should go in right now: cover crops.

Let’s see if I can say this in one breath: Cover crops fix nitrogen, add fertility to your soil, provide organic matter for better soil tilth, reduce winter rain compaction, help keep weeds under control and (take a breath) provide food for you all winter and spring. I got close.

There are three types of cover crops. I plant only two. Buckwheat, winter wheat, radishes and the like will grow in the winter and provide organic matter for your soil. I don’t bother with these cover crops, because there are better alternatives.

Crimson clover, hairy vetch, field peas and Austrian peas will add nitrogen to the soil and provide organic matter — a win-win.

My favorite is crimson (not red) clover. Planted in the next few weeks, it will sprout and grow slowly all winter. But in February or March, it will suddenly take off and produce a vivid, bee-attracting sea of crimson blooms.

Cut it with a string trimmer or mower just after peak bloom. Cut it early in the morning or the grateful honey bees will try to make you stop cutting. I just leave the clover on the ground. Then in a week, or later the same day, I push the clover to the side to make rows for corn, or spots for squash hills or tomatoes.

Do not work it into the soil. It will degrade over the summer while helping to preserve moisture and keep down weeds.

Fava beans can be planted from now until December and yield beans until June. Credit: John Fischer

But if you think a win-win is good, let me tell you about win-win-win.

Fava beans can be planted any time from now until December, and they will fix nitrogen, provide organic matter and provide you with food from a month after planting until the middle of June.

The greens — pick individual leaves — are a nice addition to winter salads. In April, beans will form on the now 4- to 6-foot high plants. You need to take off the outer pod, but not the inner bean shell. (French cookbooks will tell you to remove the inner shells — and throw away half the bean.) 

The harvest will continue until hot weather sets in, sometimes as late as July. Usually it winds up or you have your fill of beans by early June. The Windsor Broad is the Fava bean you should plant if you want to eat the beans.

Knock down the stalks when they die — or when you are tired of beans — and leave them on the ground. Clear rows between the stalks by pushing them off to the side, and you have a perfect prefertilized, almost weed-free spot to plant another crop of corn or a place to save for a winter garden. 

Getting a cover crop started may require a little watering if the weather is too hot during germination. Weeding a little in early winter will make your crop more uniform, but the cover crops often out-compete the weeds. Do not plant annual ryegrass, because it is very difficult to remove for planting.

One more benefit of cover crops? They can help dry the soil in spring so you can plant your veggies earlier.