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Buckwheat in melon patch
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Posted by
buckyz4 WI (
My Page) on
Thu, Sep 22, 11 at 11:17
| Next year when I plant my melons, squash, pumpking etc I was thinking about planting buckwheat between the rows as a cover crop and either till the buckwheat in just before the plants start vining, or if I get enough ambition, mow it down and cover with newspaper and grass clippings. Does anyone have any thoughts if this is a good plan. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| It depends on what you want. Buckwheat is often used as a weed suppressant. It's quite brittle. For use with a growing crop, you could just knock it down with a roller (or a herd of children) and let it lie there, shading the soil and forming a mat against weeds. If your soil is healthy, that may be more of an advantage than incorporating the green material. If you till it in, it's going to take a few weeks to break down in the soil. It would be an interesting experiment to do it half and half, and see which the melons respond to most. Sue |
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| Thank you for your response. I am just looking to help build the soil. I am not expecting it to help that crop of melons neccesarily, maybe just helping with weed control and helping build the soil for the next year. Last year I planted some annual rye grass and the soil in that part of the garden seemed "looser" although that was a very subjective observation. I am just pondering about having something growing whenever there is open ground and using a variety of crops (buckwheat, tillage radish, annual rygrass, winter wheat, winter rye...) |
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| "Does anyone have any thoughts if this is a good plan." It's a good plan, pretty much what I do with melons. If you knock the b'wheat down just before or as it flowers it breaks down quickly- if turned under it will be gone in a few days, and I've never had alleopathic trouble from it.
For mulch I let it almost seed, the stalks cover better and last longer. It tends to thin as vines run so I usually cover with hay, straw, etc. By the time the last melon gets pulled the b'wheat is gone, unless you let it set seed. |
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| An article in the Aug/Sept 2011 issue of Organic Gardening magazine talks about rolling a cover crop down, rather then cutting it or tilling it in, so that material lays down as a mulch. |
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| I once priced the rental of one of those handled rolling things that you fill with water to level and firm the soil, and they quoted me about $20 for 24 hrs. I guess that's okay if you have quite a lot of area to cover, but if you've got some younger neighborhood kids (or relatives), just offer them a candy bar for knocking all the buckwheat down! But NOT unsupervised, or you may lose your melons, too! Sue |
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| On the softball field, we use an old piece of carpet dragged across the ground to help level it, I bet if you added a little weight to the end, you could drag it right over the buckwheat to flatten it. Just a thought, of-course I am guessing this is not the back forty. John � who has never grown buckwheat, but played a lot of softball. |
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| Drag a tire or a 4x4 across the plot to flatten it. |
RE: Buckwheat in melon patch
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| I have an old piece of chain link fence that I got for free and I use it for smoothing soil, like a drag harrow. I plan to use it to knock down my crimson clover next spring instead of bush hogging. The bush hog scattered it too much. |
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