posted 9 years ago
Gotta agree with Joseph on the annual veggie thing. If this is a place you'll only be every other weekend annual veggies don't make sense. Many a backyard garden is lost due to neglect. No more than you'll be there the "out of sight, out of mind" factor will weigh in heavily and those veggie beds will become weed beds quickly. Too many things can go wrong between visits. I know it's for fun, but losing crops you worked hard to start isn't fun, and early victories will help give you the motivation to keep going. Cheesy, I know, but it's true. I'd personally focus on perinneals but that's me. Asparagus, fruiting shrubs, sunchokes, etc. you'll spend less time planting and more time enjoying the literal fruit of your labor. Anything that needs less babying will work better for your situation. Not to mention those plants will help you with improving the soil, even when you can't be there.
The area isn't bad then. I was waiting for you to say you were planning to sheet mulch an acre or something lol. Don't get me wrong, it can be done, but the time needed to do it would be enough to turn me away. Yes, weeds will still set up, but they should be very easy to just go in and pull by hand if the mulch is thick enough. My mulched raised beds don't set weeds as easy as soil, but they still get some. I just walk down the aisles between them and pluck them out by hand. Or you can take a hoe and scuffle the mulch around, either works. Once uprooted I let the weeds die in place. Doesn't add much back, but it's better than nothing I guess.
It doesn't have to be either/or when it comes to cover crops or mulch, but I personally don't see the point in doing both. Like a said before, if anything a cover crop can do in addition to a sheet mulch can just be added to the sheet mulch to begin with.
Cover crops hold soil, that's their point. Some also fix nitrogen, and they add organic matter back to the soil. They can also function as a "green manure", meaning you grow them, then till them under a few weeks before planting (adding organic matter to the soil). Mulch holds soil by slowing rain down (so it doesn't wash soil away), keeping wind erosion down, and keep the soil moist (dry soil=dirt). Both add organic matter back to soil, and both hold the soil in place. A good sheet mulch also includes a nitrogen-rich component (manure for example), so it also helps return nutrients to the soil. Basically they both strive to do the same thing. Personally I see cover-cropping being better for large areas as it's more time efficient than covering an entire area in 12" of mixed mulch, while sheet mulching is becomes more feasible the smaller the growing area is. I have absolutely no data to prove it, but I get the feeling a sheet mulch will improve the soil quicker than a cover crop will. After all, you don't have to wait for it to grow. You place it, and it immediately begins to function how it should.
I've never used gypsum personally, but it's a popular option for improving clay soils. It takes several seasons and applications to take effect though. You can actually find pelleted gypsum at more home improvement stores.
Hugel is basically a "raised bed" built over logs. You place logs (and brush) on the ground, then build a mound of soil over the logs. The logs, as they decay hold water that they wick to the soil above it. If you've ever found a felled, rotten tree in the woods you know what I mean, its so soft and water-logged you can dig into with your hand and squeeze water out of the pulp. They can actually hold a substantial amount of water. It was used in areas where the soil, to be blunt, was either not present in depths enough to be productively farmed (shallow, rocky, soil) or just flat-out sucked. Any type of raised gardening system by default needs more water since it has more surface area exposed to the elements that dehydrate it, the wood serves as a reserve supply where the rain you do get is held in place as opposed to dispersing out and being lost. The mass of the wood core (talking logs, not wood chips) is key to it working. If you've got wood chips you're better off just using them as mulch IMO. Tilling them in is work that won't show much, if any, benefit.