Which cover crop should I use for this?

[gilbert]

I am in Denver, CO, USA. I have about two months till I can plant warm weather crops; however, the weather will be fairly warm, with an occasional cold snap.

I need a cover crop that can be planted now, and be ready to kill for mulch two months from now. It has to be frost resistant, heat resistant, nitrogen fixing, and easy to kill. Hopefully it will grow a lot of biomass. It would be helpful if it loosened the soil. It would be nice if the seeds were large, so that they could be planted deeper and stay moist with less work.

Finally, the seed should be cheap, ideally found in the grocery store. I was thinking about lentils, or fenugreek.

Of course, a mix would be best.

Any ideas?

[steev]

Favas or peas?

[Al]

Claytonia (a.k.a. Purslane or Miners lettuce) is forming a carpet over some of my plot where I sprinkled saved seed, it has also self seeded around last years row of Purslane.

Dried peas from store might be worthwhile if the mice don't get them. Rinsing in Paraffin is supposed to disguise smell of peas.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I know this is an old thread, but i figured i'd throw my two cents in. I say try clover. It might be hard to kill though. If that's not an option, then i echo the comments above, Peas. Any pea might work, but if you want heat resistance then going for specific varieties may be worthwhile. Some have said Wando peas have heat resistance, in my experience they do not. My recommendations would be more rare soup-type peas such as Mummy White or Biskopens. Just my two cents.

Purslane might also work well. It often grows wild in our yard as weeds, but i like purslane. They even have cultivated varieties with bigger edible leaves for salads.

[diane]

Anything rare is going to be expensive. Peas (or grains) can be bought cheaply in a feed store.

[steev]

Provided you're living where there is still a non-luxury-leisure-based feed store; these are becoming as rare as real hardware stores that stock stuff in bulk, rather than pre-packaged assortments, at least in my neck of the woods.