Tea and soybeans
Lately I'm more excited about edamame harvest than tea. Like many legumes soybeans have symbiotic nitrogen fixing and bacteria living in the roots to increase nitrogen in soybean plants as well as soil. Soybean's root system is also known to natural farmers to improve soil conditions and water infiltration by breaking hard pan or impermeable layer. Also residual leaf litter is great for surface mulch yet it decompose quickly to allow next season of cropping. Many farmers use soybeans as a cover crop or green manure to till into the soil to increase the soil nitrogen, but I find that waiting for soybeans to actually go to seeds and let the plants harden or increase in carbon ratio has a greater effect on improving soil texture, especially when the soil is less than desirable condition. In our tea-soybean cropping system, soybeans enrich the soil when tea is still young, reducing the use of fertilizers, plowing and even compost. And tea in the following season gets sweeter