Cover crops

I've known since starting the garden that fertility would be a challenge, especially since I don't have any animals to give me manure. That's why I was very excited when I found small packets of cover crop seeds at a local garden center. The packets were a mix of oats and peas with enough seeds to cover 50 square feet.

A few weeks ago, I scattered the seeds in the empty areas of the garden. The instructions said that they barely needed covering, so I just raked the dirt over them a little bit.

They did sprout and are growing, but from the very spotty coverage, I suspect that the birds snacked on some seeds while dust bathing.

peas

oats

I had decided that I wasn't going to plant any radishes this year, after last year's dog problem, but after seeing the peas and oats sprout, I changed my mind and threw some radish seeds in some other empty areas of the garden. Here they are growing where the potatoes were.

I also threw some seeds in the worst parts of the yard again. I'm pretty late with them this year, so they might not get big enough to do much, but we'll see. At least I know that dogs think they are delicious underground popsicles, so I won't be surprised to see Scout digging up the yard this winter.