I have always felt the seed I've purchased from this company was some of the best. I had construction on the side of my home a few years back, heavy equipment compacted the clay soils and the topsoil they brought in to back fill wasn't much better than what they'd crushed underneath after massive disturbance. It was a shame because this South facing plot was a very productive flower bed before all of this had to happen.

This will be final year I "rehab" this 3,000 sq ft plot of soil, last summer I used the summer pollinator mix that includes 28 species of diverse covers. It was terminated in late September via machete and trampled into the ground by an overweight two-legged omnivore to gain good contact with the soil. This was allowed to dry down in the last five warm days of fall. The area is too small to seed mechanically, and I needed the exercise so I rigged up three ice chisel blades to a sort of broad fork contraption to slice down into the soil so I could plant in rows. I planted vetch, winter rye, oats, field peas, some red clover and buckwheat leftovers, why not? This grew quite well through November but by early December things had slowed, and the repeated deep frost had winter killed everything but the vetch, and winter rye.

Once the sun climbed back North in early April I saw that a lot of the winter rye and vetch had all but disappeared. Leaves from the neighbors had blown in and become frozen over with thick ice and snow blocking any chance of photosynthesis for too long during the hardest periods of winter. My plot was about 20% covered by living plants from the fall seeding so I frost seeded phacelia, buckwheat, field peas, arugula, a gourmet lettuce blend, leaf broccoli, turnips, German mustard, and radish I obtained from a seed swap. I stepped it into the ground for good contact and let the frost/thaw cycle of early spring work its magic on the phacelia. This mix was exceptional and attracted more pollinators than I knew were in our area. Every day I found a new insect I had never seen in my suburban neighborhood.

It was hard to terminate this one, I waited until the bumble bees and native wasps had drunk every drop of sweet phacelia nectar and covered themselves in deep royal purple pollen they collected. on 06/23 the same method of termination was used, machete > overweight two-legged omnivore stomping crop residue into the ground > ice chisel/broad fork contraption to drill seed rows > 5 liter pitcher of seed with a nice pouring spout and light trampling of the soil and crop residue to cover over the following: Left over green cover pollinator mix from last year that the mice got into over the winter in the garage, it started with 28 species but they left about 15 types of seeds they didn't really care for. I mixed that with buckwheat, this sorghum and one other from GC, black oil sunflower, radish, and by this time an understory of volunteer red clover that never germinated from the fall before had come up. Not a big deal, the sorghum and buckwheat quickly raced for the sky and as of today on 08/10 the sorghum is about 6 ft while some of the buckwheat is around 4.5 -5 ft in height and starting to set seed on the first flowers that came out. The pollinator mix had a great deal of different beans that germinated and did well at first but as they started to make their climb up the buckwheat, sorghum and sunflowers they were hammered by flea beetles and mites to the point where some of the leaves are see through and void of chlorophyl. In my world this is actually welcome, they served as a trap for the worst of the suckers and chewers and allowed almost all of the other species thrived and exploded as soon as we had a few inches of rain and oppressive summer heat. The pets have attracted vast numbers of egg laying green lacewing adults and a constant swarm of wasps. The green lacewing adults will browse on the buckwheat nectar so they already have a reason to be there, their offspring have just had enough time to start turning the tide, some of the beans have started to send new shoots up towards the canopy along with cucumbers and squash that I noticed climbing up the house and over the vetch and sorghum that have wrapped up in one area.

When the frost hits hard in early to mid-November this will be either grazed by a goat grazing service I'm hiring to clean up some brush or chopped and stomped again, I'll be seeding over the area with natives and many of them need the cold stratification. I'll still be ordering and recommending Green Covers, I'm glad I found you guys. I have been trying to get back into farming since the moment I regretfully left in 2010. Thank you for providing high quality goods.