Is it Worth Growing Cowpeas as a Summer Cover Crop?

Have you ever planted “cover crops” in your Florida garden? I garden in a very small area. I have all types of plants growing all over the place. I do not have rows and rows of crops. So, do I need to plant a cover crop?

Why plant a cover crop, of any kind?

Cover crops are seeds that will grow when nothing else will. Or that is my understanding. For instance, if it is too hot, or too cold, for normal crops to do well, then plant a cover crop.

It keeps the soil covered, adds roots to the earth, and nutrients as well. Beans, and cowpeas, are nitrogen fixers. They create nitrogen and it goes into the soil. Most vegetables need nitrogen to do well. Whatever is planted next, in that spot, can use that nitrogen to grow. Legumes, beans and peas do not need to be fed nitrogen fertilizer. They make it themselves.

Other plants are also nitrogen fixers. Here are a few we can grow in Florida: Sticking up For Life site.

Growing the Cowpeas

Florida summers are horrid. No one wants to venture outside and certainly there is little hope for gardening in the heat and humidity. I can only be outside very early, or very late, in the day. The idea of planting cowpeas, that do not need attention, is appealing.

So, I bought a few packages of summer beans, or cowpeas. If, like me, you don’t have a clue about “cowpeas”, they are simply all kinds of dried beans. They can be hulled from the dried pods and cooked to eat. I bought a few different kinds, and really didn’t pay attention to what went where. Some grew great – I think they were the Mandy Big Red Ripper variety, although the pods aren’t red.

But, I don’t really have a lot of empty spaces. The Seminole Pumpkin is still growing. I also have a few watermelon vines which are trailing around the perimeter. I did plant cowpeas around them.

The area where the cucumbers were planted seemed like the perfect spot for summer cover crops, but they are not really growing. I think something is wrong with the dirt in that space.

The cowpeas that are growing are crowded together, and I’m not too worried because I plan to make them into mulch. This is the first time I have tried this, and I’m all for improving the soil.

Later… (July)

The beans are really growing. They are not deterred by the heat and lack of rain. My vining pumpkin is trailing through the beans. (No pumpkins growing.)

Each day I am picking the dried beans. They can’t really “dry” in this humidity, so I pick them when they turn brown. Some have become moldy looking.

Just a warning, ants love these things.

The beans get a pretty white, or light purple flower, which the bumblebees love!

Later still… August

I have cut down all the cowpeas and left the stems and leaves all over the ground in the garden areas. Any pods that were left on the vines have begun to grow! I’m pulling them up and leaving them on the dirt.

I purchased more bags of dirt and have covered the sections of the garden where the bean leftovers are. Now I will plant seeds here for a winter crop.

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