I built a small
hugelkultur bed this past spring (full of goat manure), covered it in
straw, and put a few pumpkin plants in to see what would happen (I
should mention that I'm very, very new to this, and probably should have just planted cover crops right off). The main thing I discovered is that I hadn't spent
enough time observing, and there weren't actually as many sunny hours out there as I thought there would be. The vines produced scantily, and I
think now I'd like to try planting rhubarb, which can tolerate partial shade I've heard, and which I'm pretty sure the
deer won't browse.
I'm thinking about cover crops to plant there now, maybe putting the rhubarb crowns in in spring. It's maybe a bit late in the year for planting cover crops where I am (7b, western slope of the Cascades) but it's now or never, for this year. What would you recommend? I'm very new to cover crops too. I love purslane, but maybe it would be better to
seed that when I plant the rhubarb crowns.