Fall, with it’s cooler days, means it is time to clean up the garden and prepare it for winter. I grew a little patch of corn, pumpkins, and beans. You know The Three Sisters. I had never made a serious attempt at this before, but it worked out fine. With the crop in and the remaining plant matter frost killed, it was time to cut everything back and plant the winter cover crop. But not in that order.

I am using a technique called ‘throw sow’ I first learned about throw sow when I read the book One Straw Revolution. In the book, Masanobu Fukuoka described how he would harvest the crop of the prior season, and then cast handfuls of seed around the plot, and then chop down the crop residuals to cover and mulch the seeds. Because I am not as young and spry as I once was, casting seeds about seems much more fun than stooping over to plant each individual seed the traditional way!

It has been found that there is a tremendous benefit to planting multiple species of plants in a single plot. Since my primary purpose for the bed this winter is to be a cover crop, increasing the nutrient and carbon content of the soil, I mixed some rye, hairy vetch, and clover seeds and soaked them in water overnight. The pre-soaking of seeds has been found to soften the outer shell of the seed, allowing for faster germination, among other things. The following day I drained the seeds and threw handfuls of seed around the plot that still had the dried corn stalks standing and frozen pumpkin plants covering the ground. I then proceeded to chop and drop the remaining plant material. The chopped plant material now serves as a mulch, covering the seeds and soil allowing the soil food web do its thing.

That is it. The bed is now planted and is on its way to spring!