Buckwheat Power

It's amazing what Mother Nature can do if you just let her

Welcome to the dark side ;O) A lot of the members here will tell you organic practices are wrong, don't work yada yada yada.....actually they are good solid soil management practices that work for conventional farmers, too  It is what used to just be called farming before the advent of ag chemicals.

Edited by singingpig - 17 Aug 2012 at 8:05pm

I've tried Buckwheat and Rye so far. What kind of radishes and what do they do?

I only dealing with about 4 acreas, trying to grow some vegetables for extra income and for ourselves. This was farmed with cotton last nearly 50 years ago, and I'm trying to rebuild it as naturally as possible. I grew Abruzzi Rye last winter and Buckwheat in some new ground this Spring/Summer. It does plow in soft. I've already bought enough Rye for the Fall/Winter and Buckwheat for the warm weather. I thought about sowing the Buckwheat in the corn when the corn is around 2'. It took Buckwheat 4 weeks to reach 2', so I figure the corn will stay ahead of it. When do you plant the Tiller Radishes? I've heard of Cultivating Turnips, are they about the same? Thanks.

The only area I don't have planted, I had a big grass problem. I plan to keep disking it about once a week to kill out the weeds. Everything should play out by the end of October and I'll plant the Rye for this season. I might do the radishes next summer after the corn. Where did you find that book?

Sounds like I should try radishes on a number of fields with heavy clay soil. I too experienced following a conventional dariry farmer, who used one of the farms I'm renting for 30 plus years. I put a plow in the ground and my 6080 reared up pulling the 4x16 plow through some rather tough clay spots.... had to put the front end weights on. What I vividly remember is the absence of earth worms, earthy smell that emanates from healthy soil and no gulls following the plow... as there were no earthworms. The soil was sterile from years of raw manure, synthetic chemical fertilizer, herbicides... wouldn't even grow a decent crop of weeds. I plowed under buckwheat, alsike colver, winter rye..applying compost and copious loads of rotted cattle manure with lots of hay/straw. Took a few years, but now I can plow, the reclaimed land,  without the front end weights and experience one of the wonders of Mother Nature... gulls.....hundreds of them..following the plow. Thomas Jefferson often lamented over the fact that some people who farm, apparently set out to abuse and destroy what took mother nature centuries to form.  Mr. Jefferson took land ravaged by years of tobacco growing that would not produce anything and brought it back to life... perhaps one of our first sustainable farmers.  Thomas Jefferson loved the land... sadly, not every farmer does..... 

Remember the field needs to rest too, some don't do it at all. One year out of seven.  I'm guessing most are having to do that this year with no rain as sad as it is maybe it was time, but what do I know.  AS I say I'm just a P-time farmer.  Planting a cover crop etc. you can only take out what you put in.  Be it cover crop, stovers, lime, and fertilizer etc.