Oops, I guess that was more of a spoiler than a hint. I’ve had a few concepts circulating around me that have resulted in my decision to overseed. The first one is that I just learned that pea shoots are food. Did you know that? I didn’t! I can’t wait to try these!

Pea shoots are young pea plants that can be eaten stem and all. They can be cooked or eaten raw, just like sprouts. Evidently they’re a bit of a specialty item because they’re a pain to produce, but tossing in a few extra seeds to eat while they’re young is almost no extra work for me.

I also came across a concept, in the first edition Square Foot Gardening, of what Mel calls “interplanting.” That’s where you take advantage of your bare soil by planting small quick plants around slower plants that will grow larger, for so long as there’s room to plant under them. An example would be a tomato plant in the center of a one foot square with lettuce seedlings in each of the four corners.

At the same time, I learned as a result of thinning my seedlings wrong, that the tiniest little plant sprouts – as small as a quarter inch! – can be packed with flavor. So far I’ve tried cilantro, Thai basil, daikon radish, chia, and winter wheat, and you can bet I’m going to be snacking on the rest of my forthcoming sprouts! Lavender seedling anyone?

Why not intentionally plant too many seeds? Maybe they’ll be just right? Turns out lots of different types of tiny plants are food, and if I’m willing to eat them tiny, I can effectively move my harvest up by weeks or months. And then maybe I’ll plant more seeds to replace the ones I harvest, for so long as there’s space to do so?

But really, why not? My immediate thought is that the plants or roots could crowd each other and compete for nutrients. I’ll plan to harvest the tiny plants before they’re touching the bigger ones, and I’m beginning to veer toward foliar application as a cheap and low-runoff method of fertilization, so maybe those won’t be issues.

We’ll find out!