Green Cover’s Cool Season Soil Builder is a multi-species cover crop mix that includes 11 different species designed for improving soil organic matter and suppressing weeds.

This diverse blend of legumes, grasses, brassicas, and broadleaves all work in synergy to build soil. Legumes convert nitrogen in the atmosphere to make it available to other plants while prolific grass roots improve soil aggregation and water infiltration. Brassicas scavenge nutrients and make them available for other plants while broadleaves offer a deep taproot to break up compaction. Several species also attract beneficial insects and pollinators. If you want to improve the quality of your soil, this mix is for you!

This mix will cold kill when winter temperatures reach 10 °F.

Not sure where to start? Check out our Quick Start Guide on Cover Crops in the Garden.

Ingredients

Spring Forage Pea, Common Vetch, Crimson Clover, Spring Oats, Spring Barley, Rapeseed, Radish, Turnip, Mustard, Sunflower, Flax, Phacelia, Elevate’d Fungi Inoculant, and Bolster L Inoculant

Although these seeds are not certified organic, our seeds are non-GMO and not treated with pesticides. All inoculants are manufactured to organic standards.

Planting 

Broadcast Seeding Rate: 2 lbs/1000 square feet (90 lbs per acre)

Broadcast and lightly incorporate when soil temperatures are 45 degrees fahrenheit or higher. If planting in the fall, plant 4-6 weeks before the first average frost date.

Termination

When planted and terminated properly, cover crops can act as an excellent mulch, preventing weed seeds from germinating. 

In climates that reach 10 °F lows in the winter, Cool Season Soil Builder will normally cold kill. At this point, you may choose to remove the biomass or crimp the terminated cover crop to act as mulch for your following crop.

For no-till applications, we recommend terminating Cool Season Soil Builder with a flail mower followed by a tarp for 2 weeks before your next planting. 

Cool Season Soil Builder can also be terminated by tilling and incorporating as a green manure.

Where the context allows, grazing can be effective at terminating if it is followed by a silage tarp.

On a very small scale, cutting with a hand sickle or turning the soil over with a shovel and following with a tarp can also be effective.

Inoculants

This product is pre-inoculated with Elevate’d Fungi and Bolster L Inoculant to increase the biological activity in your soil.

• Elevate’d Fungi is a seed applied inoculant derived from natural products designed to stimulate seed germination, increase root and biological biomass in the soil, and improve soil structure. OMRI status has been applied for and is pending. 

• Bolster L Inoculant contains multiple families of nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria plus Azospirillum Brasiliense (free living N fixer) and two phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria, Pantoea Eucalypti and Pseudomonas Baetica. 

>Note these inoculants are NOT currently OMRI approved, however many of our certified organic customers have received approval to use these products. Please contact your certifier and refer to these documents before using this product on organic certified land. 

The Six Principles of Soil Health

Cover crops are most effective at building your soil when you follow the principles of soil health:

• Keep the Soil Covered

• Maximize Biodiversity

• Integrate Livestock

• Maintain Living Roots

• Minimize Disturbance

• Know Your Context

About Green Cover

Not all seed is created equal

• Clean seed? Check.

• Excellent germination? Check.

• Evenly mixed ratios? Check.

• Pre-added biology with helpful microbes? Check.

When you’re ready to amp up the diversity in your cover crops look no further than Green Cover.

We believe that the same soil health principles that work in large-scale farming apply to the home garden. Our expertly designed pre-made mixes are some of the most common mixes we create, designed to improve soil health, no matter the size of your field (or garden bed!).

Regenerative Resources

Drawing upon our team’s expertise and experience, we collaborate with farmers, ranchers and soil health researchers to produce a bounty of free, educational resources. Each year, we release the Soil Health Resource Guide, webinar series, conferences, field days and more in order to help you to make informed decisions about your soils.

Faith Based, Farmer Built, Family Owned

Like many farmers, faith and family go hand in hand with the day to day operations. We built our company to help people regenerate God’s creation to be enjoyed for many generations after us. Together with our family and employees, we’ve built this dream, and we’re all here to serve you and watch your soil health dreams become a reality.