I'm having trouble envisaging your goal glib. Annual vegetable crops need a certain amount of cultivation and minimal competition for light, water, nutrients and space so I can't see using perennials intermingled with annuals as being successful outside the ornamental garden or full blown permaculture. Conversely, perennial vegetable crops do best in beds where they can remain undisturbed. Or as borders, in which case they aren't cover crops. Wouldn't it be easier to just use mulch?

btw Daffodils are not Alliums and are actually toxic. Plus being dormant for 8 or 9 months of the year aren't much good at covering the ground. Parsley is a biennial so needs resowing every year. I use it as an intercrop but I would not call it a cover crop. I cannot envisage trying to sow seeds through mint. Seeds need a tilth and no competion while germination. Sorrel makes a fair edging but again, that isn't a cover crop. And it grows into a two foot tall and ever widening immovable clump.

I had to look up 'smallage'. Wild celery, from which the celery seed spice is harvested. I learned something new today.

Flora, the goal is a functioning biology from the get go in spring. Daffodils are there to feed mycorrhizae, and provide minimal amounts of carbon, and make photosynthesis when other plants are not making it. I think such a system would provide for light for my main crop, since they are all low plants. For water, there are circumstances where a living mulch saves water, generally with deep rooted things such as clover. For nutrients, when I got my soil test I got a recommendation to add I think 50lbs of P per acre. But there are 2000 lbs of P in that same acre right there, ready to be mined. And when it comes to soil structure, this arrangement could provide it, but cultivation does not.

Parsley, I don't disagree, but there is something to be said about rotating vegetables. Rotations and permaculture don't mix, although I am trying to mix them a bit.

Tox, I got into juicing because of smallage (I mix it with other greens). And I planted it only once! And it is all over the place now.

It sounds like what you are looking for is a winter cover crop to hold the bed from late fall to late spring. I use a combination of hairy vetch and winter rye. Plant in September, it come up before I get snow and stays alive and in place through the winter - then goes crazy in the spring. I wack it down when I'm ready to put in potatoes and tomatoes.

Thanks Richard, but for me rye/vetch mature a tad too late and I have discontinued them. The way I am thinking about it, I want what you say (winter crop) but I also want summer mulch. It is much closer in philosophy to an old fashioned cottage garden than a regular cover crop.

You could try annuals that reseed themselves; dill, fennel, radishes, lettuce. I've got some amaranth (considered a weed) that comes up regularly . . . As far as a winter crop, maybe kale and beets? It's not exactly what you're looking for...

you are right Laurie. And I use a lot of dill due to the pickles.

I love the concept. I think it would work even better if it weren't in a raised bed with sides. A more open perennial garden would allow a diversity of fauna to assist with plant health. When I lay out a garden bed at my new place, I'm going to try to create a habitat for small critters, a rockpile with some native vegetation around it.

My first thought for a cover crop was clover.

Definitely clover should be on the list. I put it in my mixed juices too, so it is a vegetable for me. Alfalfa too. The sides will be needed because a) I don't want grass encroaching and b) after I bury all that rotten wood is going to be higher in there for sure.