Hairy Vetch

2oz packet

Hairy Vetch earns its place in any agroforestry system as a hardworking living mulch and nitrogen fixer for alley rows and understory plantings. Trailing and vining by nature, it scrambles along the ground beneath young trees and shrubs, suppressing competing weeds while its roots partner with rhizobia to pull nitrogen straight from the air into usable soil fertility. This makes it a natural fit for interplanting in orchard alleys, windbreak rows, or newly established food forest guilds, where it can be chopped and dropped repeatedly to feed heavier feeding trees like apples, mulberries, or jujubes without synthetic inputs. Its dense growth also protects soil biology and moisture during establishment years, when bare ground is most vulnerable to erosion and evaporation. For growers building fertility from the ground up in a perennial system, Hairy Vetch functions almost like a soil building understory crop that quietly does the heavy lifting between your permanent plantings.