These Are the Best Edible Cover Crops to Plant This Summer

Don’t leave the garden bare. These low-maintenance, heat-loving cover crops help prevent erosion, keep weeds down, and enrich the soil biome—and are delicious.

Sunflowers provide food for birds, are great for the soil, and are bright and cheerful. Jamil Raza/Shutterstock

Healthy soil is critical to a robust, productive garden, and as such should never be left fully exposed to detrimental sun, wind, and rain. At the very least, an organic mulch should be added to dormant areas—even the whole garden if it’s left fallow.

However, this is a wasted opportunity. Wouldn’t it be even better to plant some easy-care, heat-loving, soil-saving edibles to get a jump on and enhance the fall harvest?

Bodacious Benefits

The idea behind a cover crop is to provide food and habitat for soil organisms, keep the soil cooler in high heat, reduce evaporation and summer watering demands, and protect soil from eroding its valuable organic matter and nutrients. All of which are of great benefit to the remaining plants in the garden.