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In 2018-19 I chose a mix of oats and crimson clover. I had previous experience with both a the Farm. I liked oats because they germinate better in the cool, fall weather, and getting a cover crop in the ground earlier is a real challenge when I'm still harvesting most of the garden in September.

I began broadcasting oats as soon as I completed harvesting an area, which meant that the earliest sowing was in October.

Direct sown, the tillage radish germinated quickly and well. The oats were slower. They seemed to want to be covered before they would germinate. I worked all seeds into the soil wherever I could.

Oats die with freezing temperatures - below 15- which is fine with me - dealing with a lot of biomass in the spring has slowed down planting at the garden. And weeds have been slow to develop during the winter.

The aim of using oats was simply to get a cover crop in the ground with a late planting.

The radish cover crop germinates and grows quickly, but the oat seeds are slower. The bare areas were only recently seeded as cash crops were harvested and composted. Both seeds require a good bit of moisture to get started and it works best for the oat seeds to work them into the soil, which I don't always do.

It was late in the season before I sowed this cover crop, although I broadcast seeds shortly after I had completely harvested a section, hoping to accelerate the growing. This meant that I sowed multiple sections at different times, with the result that each had a different germination pattern.

It appears that germination was most uneven in the earliest seeded sections.

Oats that survive the winter temperatures grow a tough root system that is difficult to till in the spring. So in 2020 I decided not to do much root-tilling, rather, scything and mowing the crop and transplanting in individual hills.