Hairy Vetch Legume Seed by Eretz - Willamette Valley, Oregon Grown (1lb)

The bag contained a LOT of seeds and arrived within a few days of ordering. A very good value in my opinion.I soaked the seeds over night before planting. Sprouts came up within just a few days despite this year’s poor growing season and a more northern latitude.I grew up in the Willamette Valley and purchased Hairy Vetch merely for nostalgic reasons so don’t have anything to add regarding crop usage. From experience I do know that it attracts bees though.

Seeds are potent and produce healthy, dense vetch.

I'm about to order more, having used my original purchase over two years. I'm growing at ~ 3500 ft elevation Sierras, among yellow pine-black oak forest/woodlands. and soils here are challenging. While I prefer not to till, I've had to re-excavate beds to install gopher protection. Wherever the vetch was growing the soil became dark and rich-looking. While one might technically get more nitrogen in the soil by turning the vetch in before it flowers, the flowers are wonderful and attract more different insect species – butterflies, bees and more – than I've observed on any other plant species, despite that it's nonnative. Even hummingbirds go to it. When I do turn it under it often keeps growing, stopped only by the intense heat of summer. I understand it can be invasive in other climes and over the years I have occasionally observed it naturalized in particularly moist spots around California (not escapes from my garden), it is not considered invasive in our Mediterranean-type climate.

Germinated in 7 days. Using it as cover crop

Planted with Austrian peas, alfalfa and oats as green manure for a raised garden. Oat and alfalfa die in winter in Michigan over the winter. Peas and Vetch survive and are doing great. Plan is to cut the vetch and peas leaving them where they are and use for mulch for things like tomatoes and corn. For onions and other close planting crops the vetch will be cut and tilled a couple week for planting transplants.Inspecting the roots of the vetch in April there are rhizobia nodules indicate the presence of the correct microbes and nitrogen fixing! Making N every day until we cut!!!Will be using every year to improve soil, hold water and boost nitrogen.

This purchase is actually for my husband. He likes to plant hairy vetch in his garden spot in the fall and lets it grow over the winter. Then, in the spring he tills the vetch into the ground, thus adding nitrogen and vegetative matter into the soil. This particular brand of vetch has always worked well for him.

Planted two weeks ago, nothing growing.

Sown haphazardly at the end of March in zone 4b, germinated quickly and apparently with a high success rate. I'm using them to rehab some small home garden beds, so I have much more than I need!