William Bronson

How about urine?
It's slightly acidic.

Round dishes can fit together like hexagons, with extra room at the intersection of any 3.
That's  where I was thinking to plant, but  plants growing out the middle of a plate would look very neat and tidy!
Plus it gives another opportunity for planting  at exactly half the distance.
It will also keep the plates from pooling water.
Plates are designed to stack, but the stack would probably collect water without a center hole.
Stick a terracotta pot underneath and you have a reservoir.

Glass plates are tricky,I think.
Probably better to leave them undrilled, inverted and used to warm the soil in the spring.
Maybe skip them entirely as other items do the job better.

I'm liking plates more and more!

My next trip to the reuse center I plan to grab seed starting trays to use as mulch in my pumpkin and watermelon beds.
Eventually these plants will shade the soil themselves, but right now it's either apply mulch or weed often.
So far I've been weeding, but stacking  seed starting and soil protection appeals to me.
I was thinking beans, because the seed is so cheap, but now I'm thinking fall greens, because they like shade and are less likely to get tangled with the vines.

I found some scapes on top of a compost pile at my community garden.
They were too far along to eat, too tough.
I put them in a pressure cooker with oil and water on high for an hour
It made nice infused oil.

I cleared the bed and harvested the beans.
Shelling by hand was easy.
I do wish they were more stout, by the end  the plants only stood up because they were crowded together.
Maybe another variety would be shorter, with thicker stems?

I finally got the pumpkin bed enclosed.
The plants were growing through the plastic crates I was using to protect them.

The beans are running !
Evidently they are running instead of bushing out, as a response to the extreme heat.
On the other hand, they are running towards the sunnier end of the bed, which seems counter to that theory.

We went to the garden at 7:30, to beat the heat!

I've often thought about a building topped with a shallow pool, for cooling/ heating.
The saturated char would be durable and easily replaced, protecting the water proof liner from the sun.
I'm not sure if the evaporation would cool the building, but I think it would prevent the building from gaining heat, and any dry char would be insulative.
In the cold seasons, charcoal on the roof would traxp water/ice up there.
Freeze thaw cycles will probably degrade the charcoal.

I think a charcoal version of a gabion basket would work for deployment on the roof and walls.

I just made up the term.

Winter wheat, winter rye, fava beans, anything that can start in late summer or fall, over winter and finish in the spring and early summer.

Edit: there are other plants, like good king henry or miners lettuce that might fit the bill as well.

I was asking about horseradish, but it's good to know about artichokes.
I have a fascination with the idea of a timesharing plots between warm season perinnials and overwintering annuals.
Sowing a bed of comfrey with winter rye for example.
With that in mind, a bed of horseradish sown with fava beans might work.