Hi everyone, I’m new here and I’m looking for input or advice from anyone who has done Fukuoka style growing before.  Also I don’t have internet on the farm most times so I’m sorry if I can’t respond to anything right away.

Grain Field- I can explain in more detail what and why I’m doing where the conversation goes but basically I’ve got a field full of weeds that I plan to broadcast amaranth and beans into, then chop down all the now maturing winter grasses and lay them as a mulch over the seed.  I’m hoping the beans will use the amaranth as trellising and shade in our hot California summers.  In the fall I will broadcast winter grain and some sort of leguminous ground cover and chop and drop the crop residue from the amaranth and beans onto either the seed or the seedlings.  I plan to seed when I harvest on one part of the field and seed before on another so that the seedlings are growing when I harvest.

Veggie Patch- Also a field, actually this one is a hillside, where I’ll broadcast seed and then chop and drop weeds same as the grain field.  I have some tomatoes and peppers that I will transplant but otherwise there will be direct seeding, which is fine because our season is very long, the last frost being sometime about now and the first one in fall coming around late November/early December.

Both patches will be irrigated due to total lack of warm season precipitation in California.  It should also be noted that I don’t need high yields or clean fields, I have no scarcity of space and seed to spare; I just want to find an easier, more passive form of farming.

Let me know what you guys think I could do differently and why, or what experiences you’ve had doing similar things.  Thanks!