Perennial, short-growing, cover crop (aka living mulch)

I had a goal on my list today to choose, and order, seeds that I could sow into existing grass/weeds when the weather dries up (after a sudden drop in temp, probably late January or early Feb).  When that happens, the soil should shrink, retract, crack, and allow seeds to get in when broadcast and raked in.

Best laid plans, right?

The criteria for the seeds was:

• Short-growing, preferably 4" or less.  If taller, as long as I don't mind mowing them, that's fine.  In fact, it'll produce nice mulch.  But it means I don't want stuff that's medicinal, or delicate, that grows tall.
• Perennial or self-seeding.
• Native, preferably.  

I want to get up to 12 species, because restoration agriculturalists around the world are discovering that that's the magic number where diversity breeds insane fertility in the soil.

So, I started shopping online.  

The following things started challenging my goal (aka, what went wrong):

• I started wanting stuff that couldn't take foot traffic (or truck traffic).  Good King Henry snuck onto my list.  Then alpine strawberries.  I want to seed the drivable path (or at least, the edges), and with any leftover seed, the edges of my zones.  
• So, I have to restrict myself to stuff I don't mind getting damaged.
• I looked in Gaia's Garden for a list, but the list prioritizes things that are good for permaculture design and thus not restricted to native plants.  
• So then I looked at Wild Edible Plants of the Pacific Northwest (northernbushcraft.com), and got a good list of short natives going.
• I tried shopping for the natives on my list, but it's impossible to get more than a few, because most natives that meet my criteria are considered weeds, or too precious for foot traffic, or perennial and thus seed companies don't want to advertise them.
• So, I had to scale back my goal, and do what I can do now, and call it phase 1.

I keep forgetting that making changes in nature is SLOW!  So, I don't have to feel like I have to accomplish an end goal within one massive effort.  I've got seasons and seasons at my disposal, making it possible to sculp my land into the perfect, native woodsy, wonderland.

Phase 1: Winter 2020/2021 I'm going to get the seeds that I can get, and sow those.  I'll avoid where truck tires will actually go.

Phase 2: Fall 2021 I'm going to go hiking and collect seed from native plants.

Phase 3: Keep buying what I can, using Plant Search Result (pfaf.org) to select good plants, and start sowing the collected seed.

Here's the list I came up with, and the bolded ones were the only ones I could buy (from Restoration Seeds and Territorial Seeds):

• Miner's lettuce (have 2 patches).
• Etamps / Lamb's lettuce / Mache (have 1 patch).
• White clover, of course.
• Sheep sorrel.
• Creeping wood sorrel.
• Bear grass.
• Plantain (already have, broadleaf and narrow).
• Cleavers (already have).
• Catnip.
• Salad rocket.
• Chickweed.
• Common orache.
• Ground ivy.
• Knotweed.
• Lamb's quarters.
• Peppergrass.
• Cudweed (not really native to this area, but I love the taste).
• Pigweed.
• Pineapple weed.
• Wild bergamot.
• Stork's bill.
• Quickweed.
• Purslane.
• Lamb's ear (have 1 patch).
• Sweet gale.
• Garden cress.
• Blanketflower.

Look at how well Miner's lettuce does as a living mulch!

Mache (lamb's lettuce) isn't bad either, but struggles with buttercup.  Maybe if I frequently watered with mycorrhizal fungi, these would outcompete the buttercup...