Cover Cropping and Sneaky Quinoa

Yes, our quinoa is sneaky!!  More importantly it IS actually growing in our garden (I initially thought it did not germinate because of the soil temperature).  Here is the not so intriguing story....

I ended my previous post with a picture of us clearing out the garden to plant a cover crop.

While pulling up the remaining turnips and beets I noticed a new, so I thought, weed consistently growing in a row.  I skeptically declared to Jonathan it was my quinoa knowing there are some weeds that look similar.  So we decided to leave it and see what happens.  Here is my possible red quinoa, or at the least something in the same family (like lamb quarters maybe)-

Picture from my seed packet, notice the leaves-

Another picture of a young quinoa plant from the internet-

Here is a picture of the possible impersonator, whose leaves are edible I believe.  Wild lambs quarters-

Anyway, this is all probably very boring to most so I apologize.  It's exciting to me.  If anyone has experience growing quinoa please feel free share any information.
Back to cover cropping and why we are doing it.  We had a good year of harvest which we think is mostly due to the addition of lots of organic matter (composted cow manure) to our garden.  It greatly improved our soil's quality, especially the once horrible soil structure.
Cover cropping is when you sow a specific crop to improve the soil's quality.  For us we chose Winter Rye (yes, like the grain you find in rye bread).

After tilling up the ground we spread the seed just as you would grass seed (I got the Winter Rye seed from our local garden store, it was the one recommended for our area).

Then per my Dad's suggestion (since he does this sort of thing very often), we ran over it with our tractor to mash it down into the dirt.  For a smaller area, a simple raking around to cover the seed will do.

Now we let it grow all winter long.
Why cover crop (also called green manure), even if you have a small garden?  Cover crop suppress weeds, builds productive soil (by adding nutrients and organic matter after being tilled in in the spring) and help control pests and diseases.  Winter Rye specifically grows nice deep roots which provide many benefits to the soil (erosion control plus compaction prevention and the addition of organic matter in soil once the plant is dead).  It also helps preserve the nitrogen content in the soil instead of it leaching away into the ground water.  Winter Rye will grow and germinate in near freezing temperatures.  After well established it is very hardy and can tolerate temperatures as low as -33 degrees Fahrenheit (there is a minus in front of that number).
The crop then gets worked into the soil in the spring.  I cannot speak to how hard or easy it is to work up on a small scale without a tiller.  I would assume some work with a hoe would probably turn it over fine?  I have been told in our area that the crop will get stunted in the winter keeping it from re-seeding, but have read you should mow or work it in the soil before it gets to a re-seeding point.  I do know you should turn over any garden (cover crop or no cover crop) multiple weeks before planting in the spring to allow anything growing there to rot.  I will let you know how this goes for us.

To end with something worth looking at, here is baby girl feeding the pigs pumpkin scraps while wearing a purple sparkly necklace (irrelevant but a better ending than cover cropping stories)-

Pigs love all things squash, and baby girl thinks they should be served in style I guess-