Quote:
Originally Posted by carolyn137
Lee, that's the first time I've ever heard of planting winter wheat..
We had many acres of tomatoes on the farm where I was raised and after the first Fall heavy freeze my father and other farmers in the area would plow under the dead tomato plants,disc the fields just once and then holding a bowl of WINTER RYE seeds, scatter them over the fields and falling rains would put those seeds down a bit and there they would stay dormant until it got warmer in the Spring and sprouted and when those plants were about a foot high they were plowed under again and the fields prepared for planting out new tomato plants.
When my father was Dx with parkinson's disease a local farmer took over using our fields and he did the same with planting winter rye, and he did it at his place also, but behind the tractor he had this machine that spewed out seeds that covered 6 rows at a time.
Here is a link to suggested winter cover crops
https://www.google.com/search?q=wint...&bih=815&dpr=1
You will notice winter rye being mentioned a lot within several of those internal links.
Carolyn |
I discovered Hairy Vetch by accident. It was an extra included with cow manure along with many other extras which is why i don't use cow manure anymore.
Hairy Vetch is the perfect cover crop especially for no-till gardens.
Benefits are;
Nitrogen fixer
It is shallow rooted so it doesn't interfere with other crops like kale and collards. They grow together just fine.
The bees love it.
When the weather gets warm it dies and lays down naturally and provides a nice mulch.
It reseeds itself
The seeds will not germinate in warm weather so nothing to worry about there.
It is pretty to look at.
Anyway it is perfect cover crop for me, not sure if it hosts any insects or disease. It doesn't here.
