You could plant part of it in, say, fava beans & then cut them off leaving the roots etc in the ground then plant your veg crop in spring as usual the beans will have fertilized the soil & the tops will be good mulch or compost material. Why dont you just plant Fall/Winter veg. & let that be the cover crop-in, at least, part of the beds? (You cant eat your cover crop if you need food). Then cut off the spent plants, leave roots in the ground, fertilize as usual & plant your Spring/Summer crops over them. You could do what I'm going to do, plant the cover crops in the paths, cut them off in the spring & use the dry matter for mulch/compost material. You really dont need to tie all the bed space in a cover crop. What is your reasoning? If you have your soil structure developed you DONT want to be tilling as this will destroy what nature has been improving. Plant some alfalfa seed around a few spots, it will root down deep, fertilize & loosen the soil without tearing up everything then chop the tops off a while before U want to use the spot for veg. I'll get you straightened out!

While cover cropping and a green manure crop are often used interchangeably they actually have two different purposes with cover cropping simply a plant to hold the soil in place and prevent erosion, and a green manure crop carefully chosen to provide some nutrient. While the same thing can be seeded in either case, more care is needed in choosing a green manure crop. Winter, Field, or sometimes Annual Rye (not to be confused with annual ryegrass a "weed") is often seeded as a winter cover crop and is sometimes called a green manure crop it is not the same as seeding a legume, which would actually provide a nitrogen source in the soil. The Field Rye would in reality need some additional Nitrogen in the soil so the soil bacteria could digest it if it were turned in while any legume would provide that N which is why, often, Hairy Vetch is seeded along with the Rye. If your garden will be fallow (unused) during the growing season you would want to plant a legume (some need warm weather to grow), clover, peas, vetches, which will provide a N source while also holding the soil in place. Instead of leaving your gardens soil bare and exposed to the ravages of the winter weather, then you could seed like the Winter Rye which will hold that soil in place during the winter. Both times what you grow will provide organic matter which will improve the soil as well as stabilize it, and anything you do plant will contribute some kind of nutrients to the soil, its just that others (the legumes) do a better job.

What I ended up doing was raking the leaves into the area. Giving the area a good thick covering of leaves and then fired up the mulching mower without the bagger set as high as it would go and slowly mowed over area since it's slightly narrower than the deck of my mower it worked perfectly. The first time I found that it kicked a lot of the ground leaves out the side and into the yard. After that made my layer of leaves extend wider than my mower so the chopped up leaves whouldn't shoot out so far. I repeated that till all the leaves were gone and I had a nice layer of finely ground leaves. The ground can't be tilled as it's too close to a tree and so there are areas where there are roots. I'm planning on raising the bed and adding some good soil to give the plants more room and to add more good soil to the area. The ground when I first tore the sod out was very sandy. The plants did ok, but, I plan on improving the soil to make it better for them. I'm still wondering though if the setup I'm thinking of in the previous post will work. I'm hesitant to have the edge of my flats 3 inches outside the the direct light. And whether or not using some kind of blind or foil wraped deflectors will work. It would be the difference between sitting 4 flats on a shelf as opposed to just 2.

Eyes, I can't say which would best for Fall, since I have only started new plants from seed for my Fall crops. I'm sure you still have plenty of time root new plants and from what I've read, that method works pretty well. As far as keeping plants alive, I guess that would depend on their health. If you put in new plants, be sure they have plenty of sun even into the late Fall. I've made the mistake of planting in a location that loses a lot of sun once the days get shorter. You could get a few fruits to ripen from the late-maturing types like Brandywine, but I always get more ripe fruits from the early-maturing types in the Fall. Lastly, I haven't noticed any particular types of plants that the insects stay away from. Good luck and congrats on the Spring harvest, Pete