No till cover crops

I have a pasture with compact clay "soil" that is being taken over by burrweed. I'd like to use cover crops to increase fertility so I can garden over there at some point. I like the idea of no-till but I have no idea how you start with cover-crops without tilling first. Do I just throw some seeds down and see what comes up?

We are planning to use seed balls (made with clay, compost and seeds) to scatter on our comparable (but sandy) area after we get our swales in. These should give the seeds a bit of protected micro-climate while they germinate. I'm debating whether we can get away with just scattering these on the unmodified surface versus dragging something through with the tractor to scratch up the surface before we scatter the seed balls (I'm picturing a homemade chain harrow or grass harrow, basically a metal frame with spikes that just loosen up the surface without substantially altering the soil structure). We'll have to see how compacted the surface is by the time we want to plant.

Commercial no-till farmers often have tractor-pulled equipment with a blade that cuts a slice followed by a coulter that opens the slice and then a drill that drops the seeds in and the slice closes burying them below the surface.

We have up to 10 acres to seed - it may not all get done this year. We will likely end up using a small cement mixer to make bulk batches of seed balls. For getting them distributed into the field, I think ideally we would like to walk through and scatter them by hand, or I can also envision driving slowly through with the pickup and shovelling them off the back. We haven't tried it yet so will adapt our methods once we see how effective they are.

Depending on the status of your weed problem, I wonder if you might need to mow first to reduce competition on your newly seeded area.

I have good success with some kind of tarping during the winter. Be sure to remove any of the stalks with the bur seed first but as much of other grasses mowed and left in place or added as possible.  If your burr weed has biennial roots these will be evident when the covering is removed and can be dug up or kept cut untill exhausted. Most cover crop seed will start easily in the decomposing residue when tarps are removed. I have patches of alfalfa which I allow to set seed then move it to sparse areas gradually improving the whole field.

Thanks! I never thought of seed bombs or tarps. Both are great ideas.

I meant to aak, what is burr weed? I assume it is not burdock? (Which is actually a very useful edible and medicinal although the burrs are a pain).

Sorry, 'ask' not 'aak'! Hard to type on phone.

A tarping for a few months would help you with the weed issue. I'd be tempted to start by low-mowing the weeds down to create some green manure, then burying the plot deeply in woodchips Back-To-Eden style. Fungi, in a year or so, will add the life needed and break up that dense clay soil, and you can usually get large amounts of chips for cheap/free. Then your weeds become part of the solution by adding nutrition to the soil and you save yourself some hard labor of breaking up that claypan.