The gardening book I most consult is Joy of Gardening by Dick Raymond. He has a chapter on green manures. In short he says the four green manures he likes the best are English peas, beans(green and yellow snap beans and sometimes soybeans), buckwheat and annual ryegrass. what is best for you depends on the time of year and how long you want it down.

Christopher
S. OKC

sooners,

I also refer to " The joy of Gargening" also, and like the book. I have trier most of the green manure crops listed by Dick Raymond and agree with Christopher. The thing that has worked for me the best is the ones that are easyier to till in. I have a counter rotation tine tilled that wont go very deep. The peas wrap around my tines more even when I mow them first. The Buckwheat worked really well because it can be grown fast and worked in while the ground is warm and dry. Grain rye and rye grass worked well but I have to till them in before the wet spring weather ( I live in a wet, low area).

Like Christopher said, it depends on the timing and the equipment you have to work with. I have to mow everything before I try to till it in.

I forgot to mention, I have tried vetch also, works great, but if your tiller is like mine, expect to clear the tines from time to time.

Larry

Could Buckwheat be germinated and grown this time of year? I've been using grass clippings for mulch, but need lots more than I presently have! I am interested in growing something I can use for mulch, now that the Bermuda is starting to go dormant from the heat. Something I can grow on my own location rather than bringing it in from elsewhere, and something that wouldn't need a lot of water once established. Maybe this is the impossible dream, but I need to do something pretty fast.

In a dilemma,
Barbara

Barbara,

Buckwheat germinates well and grows fast, but I dont think it will produce as quickly as you will need it. You may need neighbors saving grass clippings for you. I am guessing Buckwheat would need about 6 weeks to grow to harvest size, and I am not sure about the water requirements it would need for this time of year.

I grew Alfalfa one season for a green manure crop, and bagged the clippings. I thought it was a lot of work, but at that time I did not mulch, and I had an artesian well so water was no problem. I could run the pump for hours and the well would be running over again in a couple of minutes after the pump was turned off.

Gardening is tuff when water is in short supply. I called about getting a well drilled yesterday. I was quoted $12.00 a ft., plus casing, so I could sink $1500.00 to $2000.00 into a well.

If I were going to try growing a mulch to harvest, Alfalfa would be one I would check into, but it may not grow well in your area, and may need more water than you have. It worked well for me, but I had deep soil and lots of water.

Larry

Larry...
Oh my goodness, weren't you the lucky one to have an artisian well and all that great water and deep soil!!I'll bet you had an awesome garden there.

The last time I had abundant pure clear water like that was on top of Casper Mountain in Wyoming. We drilled wells all over the place at 50 ft., once even at 10ft. in a meadow and hit water every time. But, we had deep rock most places, not deep soil. So, no one tried to do any gardening. That area of the mountain was highly mineralized. One area close by had a huge outcropping of vermiculite. I wish I had a few tons of that in my garden here. My soil seems very loose and sandy like. I guess one could call it sandy loam, but in the summer it leaks water like a sieve.

I don't know what I'm going to do about the mulch situation or the cover crop yet. This time of the year with it so hot and dry, it's a bad time to try and start anything like that unless you have a great well... or a sky high water bill.

I did think about Sudan Grass, but need to take the time to do a little more study. My idea was maybe to start a cover crop if I could and then allowing it to grow a bit and then mow it. I wish I had started a plan earlier this season but had too many irons in the fire at the time.

Thanks for the info! 6 weeks for the Buckwheat doesn't sound too bad. It might be a good trade off on the water I'd have to buy to get it to maturity, as opposed to having to buy some spoiled hay, etc. Straw bales have too many seeds unless you weather it and allow it to be rained on and the seeds sprouted. All my neighbors nearby here in this semi rural area mulch their grass and don't bag it, so no chance there.
A stand of buckwheat may be the way out after all. More work on the horizon, lol!

Barbara

Barbara,

The rule of thumb I have always heard used was buckwheat is ready to till when it blooms or at least till the blooms wilt. I agree with Larry also Buckwheat is the easiest to till as the stems are hollow.
As I am sure you know the reason Beans or Peas are good to use is they fix nitrogen to their roots so it is kind of a two for deal and if you harvest the Beans or Peas fist it is a three for deal. Small bush types are best of course in this. Mow first like Larry said or it is more work and clumps more.

Christopher
S. OKC

Was surprised to see so many of you using Dick Ramonds book, when I first started to try to get away from the old style, long row garden his book really helped me a lot, where I can i'm using his wide row methods, but i've still got a long way to go.
He writes in a way that is easier to understand then most writers.

As far as green manure, i use winter rye because the outher things he recomends are hard to find here.

Christopher and Larry...
Since I couldn't find a source of Buckwheat except at the healthfood store, I placed an order with Peaceful Valley Farm Supply for Buckwheat, Sudan Grass, Japanese Millet, and Soybeans. All these are warm season cover crops.

I plan to mix this all together with some things I have in my pantry, such as pinto and black beans, flax, and sesame seeds and see what I come up with. I figured it would all be a nicely symbiotically homogenous blend :)

I don't think I have a whole lot to loose and a lot to gain in the form of mulch, which is what I was after. So, I do plan to mow and gather it into my garden rows, rather than tilling it in. Then, this fall I may follow it with something that's winter hardy, like annual rye, doing a no till planting. I sort of like the idea of planting a mixture of cover crops seeds, so I may try to find something that would work well with the annual rye, like winter wheat maybe. I've set aside two areas to "play with" for this purpose. Since I'm attempting a lasagna garden in my main garden area, I don't want to till it under. This in itself has been a major undertaking, but I think it will pay off in the long term.

Thanks for all the input. So welcome as always, and every little bit helps. This forum has been a godsend really!

Barbara

If you are going to plant greene beans for the fall and to put back in the ground, what is the best time and what kind is the best? Thanks

Sooners.....
As for me, I've recently planted some pole beans, and will plant some more to run up my corn stalks. But I am still planting bush beans which mature faster.

If you have planted bush beans before and have a favorite kind, you could plant those with an eye on the maturity date and also the date of your zone's frost date, and plant accordingly.

I can't say that there is any one specific "best kind" or not. Some folks like filet beans, and I do as well. One year I planted some which out produced anything I've ever planted. Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of the name of them and have regretted it ever since.

I've planted several different kinds of bush beans this summer, one of which was Contender, an old family favorite my folks always planted and I like it as well. It's a matter of personal choice and what's worked well for you in the past.

If you haven't planted bush or pole beans before, you might want to try several different kinds to see which ones you like the best. Some of the other posters may have some suggestions as to preferable bean varieties, planting dates, etc.

Beans are easy and fun to grow and generally pretty trouble free. I had a few problems with bugs nibbling my early starts but as with many of my other plantings, they soon outgrew the nibbling stage and became vigorous and healthy looking.

Good luck :)

Barbara

Sooners,

The fall gardening guide linked below has some of the recommended fall planting dates in it.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Fall Gardening Guide

I have used buckwheat and most farm & Seed supply houses carry it.There is one down the road from me on 97 that sells a 50lbs. bag for $35.00.
The university of Kentucky (might still be on their site), did a test I read about 8 years ago where they tested different green manures and included different times you could use them, different ways to work with them, such as they found that with Buckwheat if you had a plot that you where not using it was more beneficial to sow buckwheat as soon as your last frost was over. Let it only get 6" tall and till it in. Then sow it again( Buckwheat does not produce a a gas that prohibits seed germination as most other green manures, you usually have to wait a couple of weeks with them.) and till it in. They said this if you did it all spring and summer,and fall until the first killing frost, would be like putting an inch and a half of compost in your soil. On large plots this was very cost efficient.Try getting that much compost to put on an acre.

Tulsacityfarmer...

I agree that Buckwheat sounds like a near perfect summer cover crop. What I wanted for my needs was a cover crop that I could mow, and then use the clippings for mulch, instead of tilling it in. I presume that I can do that with Buckwheat without killing it.
Anyway you look at it, it's going to benefit the soil and the plants.
Thanks for the info. 50 lbs for $35 sounds like a deal. The seed could be kept in a lidded container and I'm sure it would last, (me), for several years.
btw...I would LOVE to grow some Buckwheat to harvest a small amount for food. I am very fond of Buckwheat pancakes! I like to buy Buckwheat groats and then grind them in my blender into flour. Buckwheat is a superfood.

Barbara

You can plant buckwheat and oats if you want a mulch.When the first killing frost comes they die and lay flat for a natural mulch.
I have a friend who after she plants her garlic, she plants oats so they will mulch her garlic until harvest!

Barbara,

I planted buckwheat, vetch, and alfalfa one year just as an experiment, about 200 sq ft. of each. I mowed the alflafa and vetch. The buckwheat I was afraid to mow it, it did not look like it would recover like the vetch and alfalfa would.

The buckwheat, by far out grew the other two. For mowing and harvesting the clippings, I by far like the alfalfa better. Alfalfa will be very wet and you will want it to dry some before putting it around plants. I dont know if there is a disease that might be in any of these plants, I had no problem. The alfalfa (per the research I did) will do much better after two years because the roots go very deep and bring up trace minerials that have become out of reach for most garden plants.

The vetch seemed to like cooler weather and was to "viney"

At the time I had no computer so all my research was done the old fashion way. You should be able to get a ton of info on the web. You may be able to get a mix and harvest the year around.

For winter cover crops I liked rye grass and grain rye, but they need to be tilled in. The reasons I did not continue with the project was, (1) I did not like tying up my garden space. (2) I could buy finished compost in Ft. Smith for $10.00 a yard, plus I had more water than I could possibaly use, so at the time mulching was not that important to me.

Larry

Don't forget newspaper as a mulch. If you have something to lay over it, such as grass clippings or shredded leaves or the clipped buckwheat, you can lay down 5 or 6 sheets and cover them up. If you don't have anything to hold them down, you can still use them if you are willing to take the time to tear them in strips, scramble them and wet them down. They don't tend to blow so badly this way, especially if they are tucked around plants.

Tulsacitygardener...
The Buckwheat oats sounds like a good combination, especially since I plan to plant some garlic this fall.
Great idea for a mulch that will stay put til harvest too.

Larry... I have 3 separate areas saved for growing cover crops. I was planning a rotation scheme. I like the idea of planting alfalfa because, yes, as you've said, I have heard that the roots grow incredibly deep. Since it could be mowed, I like the idea even better, wet or not. My soil is a rich sandy loam but I still think it drains too fast in the summer. Basically, I need the mulch to continue building my lasagna garden, layer upon layer, and until the recent rains I was running out of grass clippings. If I could ever get compost for $10 a yard like you did, I'd be in hog heaven, lol! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mulberryknob... the newspaper is a great idea for around the base of plants. And your right, you do have to wet it down. Last year I mulched some potato plants with shredded newspaper and then tossed some spoiled hay on top of that. The snakes loved it. I didn't! lol! That was when I worked on the ranch, so I don't have access to spoiled hay now... and it's just as well since I do not like that deep a mulch or even need it really. Every time I've had a deep mulch like that in a garden I had snake problems and I do not like snakes! Especially with kids, (or me),around. This year, since I learned about the lasagna gardening technique, I've been pretty happy with that, even though it's been a big job getting the transformation started. I still have to make plain rows where I can't plug in plants, and that's where the newspaper comes in handy, and some light mulch such as grass clippings for small areas, and around the base of plants. After we put a ton of cardboard down, we tossed some garden soil and grass clippings on top, and it's all getting rather weathered in after several months, and looking more like "soil", but still holding the weeds down and keeping the moisture in. I love it! Barbara

I always use newpaper beneath every thing when I make any from 4-6 or more inch high, landcaping planting beds. It works very well for such use, and is easy to obtain.

Only thing is; I never would want to use layers of newspaper in the soil beneath or on the soil surface around garden crops that have been grown as a food source. It's been too often reported that the ink that newpaper publishers use is very high in lead content.

If that bit of info still holds true, it would never be a good idea to use the newspapers for mulching gardens that produce edible food. Not even around very many of the different varieties of fruit trees.

Katrina...
I think the use of lead in newspaper print has been banned since about the 70's, and now the ink is basically carbon black. I could be wrong on the latter. But if newspaper ink were hazardous in the garden, it would certainly be hazardous for us to handle in the home as consumers.

I must admit that I had a huge concern about lead in my front garden, which borders on a very old road that was used by cars and trucks which undoubtably used leaded gasoline. I had wanted to start a potager garden in that area because it's on higher ground.

What I found on the Internet was a way to "cleanse" the soil via "phytoremediation", and so I've begun planting sunflowers in that area to remove any harmful leads or other heavy metals. There are other plants that can be used for this purpose as well, included in the link I'll post.

This would be something for gardeners to think about if they had doubts about their soil, and what was in it.

Cheers :)

Barbara

Here is a link that might be useful: Healing Contaminated Soil

I'm going to try using a living green manure white clover as a living mulch, next year. Has anyone done this and if so what was the out come?

Tulsacityfarmer,

For living mulch clover is great as long as it is under a tree or shrub. As a green manure it is not too great. It just takes too long to get going good (a couple of seasons). Also it is a perennial so it can come back as a weed in later crops. True it fixes nitrogen but it is second fiddle to Alfalfa when it comes to that, but Alfalfa is just like clover in that it is a perennial that takes a while to get established. Like Alfalfa it has stringy roots that clumps and can be a bit hard on the tiller (the person tilling). Also it dies out here (OKC) in the summer heat and drought, but in Tulsa it would do much better.

Christopher
S. OKC