Joan's Method for Enriching the Soil

1. I use the lawnmower to chop up all my materials, twigs, small branches, raspberry canes, ivy, and old garden plants and simply sheet mulch with them on the beds that need organic matter most. 
2. If I'm not ready to do that, I put what I have cut up in a pail with a lid, or pile it in an empty space. 
3. If I have the time, I might lightly fork in the material once I put it on a bed, to induce it to compost.  But now that I don't get flooded so often, I think I'll just cover with a thin layer of hay as they suggest. 
4. Last year in some of the beds, I planted a mix of oats and field peas.  The birds always get the oat seed no matter what I do, but the field peas come up wonderfully, get about 1-1/2 feet high, join hands and cover the bed beautifully.  You can eat the tendrils and the plants should kill in the winter (If we have any).  Last year they lasted through the winter and I chopped them into the bed when I double dug in the spring. 
5. Also in the fall, I think gardeners should trench compost their weeds instead of cleaning all that organic matter out of the bed and tossing it out.  Buried weed seeds are not a problem--they are too far underground to sprout. So you dig a hole/trench, fill it with garden trash, dig a hole next to it to fill the first hole and add more trash, and so on until it's all gone.  This is done before planting a cover crop or putting on a topping of hay.