Fall garden and cover crops

After the Master Gardener talk on Fall and Winter Gardening by Jen Aron of Peaceful Gardens I did a bit of a harvest and clear out of the summer garden to make some room.

I lightly prepped the soil, added a little organic matter and some seeds.

For the fall garden, I planted chard and lettuce. As a cover crop I planted crimson clover and some chicken vetch.

Watered that in and covered with burlap and mulch to keep the water in.

Then started watering twice a day to keep moist.

I was shocked, yes shocked, to see sprouts just three days later!

Edible Forest Gardens: Vol 2. Chapter 5 -- Site Preparation

After resuming my reading in Edible Forest Gardens, I picked out some techniques that seem promising for site preparation: 

• Rock dust
• Cover Crops
• Mulch -- 1/2 - 4 inches. Not next to woody trunks. 
• Torching weeds
• Infiltration Swales
• Double Digging
• Radial Trenching -- sort of like double digging for trees (figure 5.10, p. 361)
• Mounds -- but need to consider the impact of soil texture transition

I found the last line of the chapter to be telling: 

One thing is true, though. If you skip site preparation, you are likely to regret it for a long time to come.

Finishing Front

At Naomi's Organic Farm Supply I picked up some worm compost and steer manure to top-dress my garden.

Then I spread around some flakes from a compressed straw bale and proceeded to spread the straw out as a mulch.

With a gentle spray setting, I wetted down the straw.

I thought I was going to be clever and dress up the straw with some hazelnut shells. Turns out I either need a lot more shells or this is only going to be an accent. I'm going to give it some time to decide if the look is going to work for me. I had thought about using Douglas Fir Bark Dust, but this would lead to a more fugally dominated soil as it breaks down. For annual plants, we want bacterially dominated soils.

And I couldn't resist picking up some more plants: flowers and herbs to plant on the slopes