Vetch is grown in home gardens as a green manure, cover crop or living mulch. When cut down (before flowering), it improves soil fertility, adds structure to the soil and provides organic matter as a mulch. It is grown by farmers as a fodder crop and is edible from seedling through to maturity. Vetch is a legume and fixes nitrogen in the soil when the correct rhizobia is present. We grow it as a climber and feed it to our chickens as well as using it as a chop and drop mulch.