Mixing different kinds of seeds in one garden plot
Milpa is a warm season cover crop mix that includes greens, squash, beans, corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, and annual and wildflowers. It is designed to grow as much food as possible in a space without weeding, tilling, and planning.
In addition, it also adds nitrogen to the soil, creates mulch at the end of the season. I also find that the densely planted plants deter some pests, like squash bugs.
You can buy a mix of seeds (like from Green Cover below) or you can create your own mix.
The Milpa plot is designed to grow different waves of plants throughout the summer months with multiple harvests.
Milpa Seed – Buy or Mix Your Own Seed
I get my Milpa seed from Green Cover Seed, as shown above.
This sells out fast each year, and in 2022 and 2023 it was sold out for most of the season, so I created my own mix:
- Mancan Buckwheat from Green Cover Seed
- Red Ripper Cowpeas from Green Cover Seed (I have saved seed from previous years).
- Bush pinto beans. I buy these in bulk at the local Mexican Carniceria grocery store.
- Squash, melons, pumpkins – leftover from previous years or acquired from a Spring seed swap.
- Grazing corn from Green Cover Seed or some short corn like Strawberry popcorn from Baker Creek. This should be lightly mixed in so that it doesn’t shadow out everything else. Remember – the core of Milpa is corn, with squash growing up the stalk, and beans feeding nitrogen in the soil.
- Daicon radish or some radish that you like.
- Okra
- Cucumbers that will produce early and then vine along the ground.
- Short season summer squash
- Pollinators – I use the Perennial Pollinator mix from Green Cover Seed or mix your own with calendula, echinacea/coneflower, hairy vetch, clover. However, if you are using Milpa to prep a bed and build soil to grow some annuals in that bed in later years, you do not want to use perennials.
How to Milpa Garden
I planted this in two new areas.
- I used a broadfork to turn over the sod in a new area of the pasture.
- After the broadfork, I broadcast the seed and then covered it over with a light layer of wood chips to keep the seed in place and to minimize the critters eating the seed.
- I sowed the first plot just after last frost in late April. It developed a buckwheat and beans heavy yield. The corn was knee high grazing popcorn, which was spread out about 1 every 4 feet.
Plot 2 was planted later in May. Squash quickly took over and dominated over the buckwheat. There was also a nice amount of pumpkins and cowpeas, which are a legume/bean.
At the end of the season, I had a harvest of dry beans, and I slashed the stubble for mulch, covering the spoil for the winter.
I also use the Milpa strategy when creating new in-ground garden beds. I turn over the sod with a broadfork, spread a little compost, then spread the Milpa seed. I cover it with a light layer of wood chips. I harvest what I can then at the end of the season I slash the remaining and use as chop and drop mulch for the winter. Using this method, I have been able to create in-ground garden beds in clay soil with not much inputs. I highly recommend it.
