Geoffrey --- I've always wanted to chop and drop, but all of our weeds seem to be the type that do badly with that method. (Dandelions, violets, etc., will just send up new leaves quite happily all summer if you don't get the roots.) The grain cover crops seem to be similar, but anything that will mow kill should respond well to chop and drop.

Phil --- As far as I know, they aren't edible, although they're so beautiful that every fall visitor to my garden last year wanted to eat them. The seeds can be used to make oil, but Wikipedia says the oil is only good for biofuel, not eating. That said, I'm not so sure they're not edible, maybe just not very tasty?

I actually have that happen with a number of the "weeds"...I consider it a bonus. My soil is very sandy and acidic (up on a ridge of Tuscarora Sandstone just before it goes up the mountain...),so I am trying to get as much organic matter as I can into it. The soil also dries out quickly when exposed. The multiple crops of leaves are a welcome thing. (I have a bunch of Evening Primrose that I have been allowing to spread a bit that produces a nice batch of leaves for this. (they also make a nice addition to the salads...))

I figure it this way...the plants that break through the straw are obviously quite tough. I am guessing they are pulling up nutrients that I will want in the mulch layer of my garden...if they produce more, excellent. They MIGHT be competing with the other plants, but at the rate I am trimming them down, they will likely exhaust themselves in enough time, and their efforts improve my soil.

Your method does seem to be the standard permaculture way, but I've discovered that if you want the best yields from your garden, it's better to give your crop weedless space. Sure, your weeds are slowly building the soil, but they do compete with your crops. Instead, I rotate cover crops with vegetables, getting the best of both worlds --- competition free growing for my veggies and soil building in the interim.

How much your vegetables can handle competition tends to relate to how good your soil conditions are. So, if your soil is poor and really needs building, your veggies will have a hard time competing with your dynamic accumulators. That's the unfortunate result I got when I tried to intercrop comfrey with a nectarine in poor soil.

Of course, maybe I'm just too lazy (or the garden's too big) to cut the dynamic accumulators often enough. I can't seem to make it back through more often than once every two weeks, and that's really pushing it. Usually, each garden patch only gets weeded once every one or two months! (We grow every vegetable we eat all year, so it's a big garden.)

I have about 1/5 acre of weedy ground that I plant to cover crop over winter. Below is my current plan. I would love to hear some feedback on this. I do not have any machinery but can pay for such services if justified.

Goals: weed suppression, soil improvement, erosion control. Crop: 1. oats/vetch/clover. 2. oats for straw.

The ground will be lightly plowed after the first rains in mid october. I plan to hand-broadcast the seeds and need a good solution for how to cover them afterwards.

In the spring, I plan to kill the cover crop by cutting it down with a scythe, allowing it to smother itself under its own cuttings below a layer of straw harvested by the grain rows.

essentially, I will be creating a 1/5 acre compost pile that is low enough to not necessitate turning and covered by straw on top to preserve moisture and smother the cover crop.

I plant to plant a variety of vegetables into this. the bulk will be corn into the vetch rows, and peanuts into the pure oat rows. might do a batch of radishes before the peanuts as a quick spring crop to suppress nematodes.