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| Tilling Down the Buckwheat July 23, 2007 14:44:17 It looked like the buckwheat was ready to be worked into the soil on Saturday so, with it being such a nice cool morning I got out the tiller and went to work. Also worked in the standing sweetcorn stalks and some weeds. The buckwheat plants were about 2 feet tall and starting to bloom. A good time to work them in. I would have liked to have had a little denser stand but I barely had enough seed to cover the area. The plants tilled in very easily and I only went over it once. It would be nice sometime to grown some buckwheat and just let it go to seed and harvest it. Maybe I will try that when I have some more space. 
When I planted the buckwheat I was a little concerned about the birds coming in and eating a bunch of the seeds off the ground. I don't think they did. Since I just worked it in with a shallow tilling once the seed was broadcast it is impossible to get it all covered up. I may do another planting of buckwheat once I dig my potatoes. From planting to working under the time on this spot was about 1 month. 
I also worked down my sweetcorn stalks that were standing after having yielded a lot of sweetcorn ears. It took two passes with my small Troy Bilt tiller to get the stalks worked into the ground. The pic to the right is the stalks after they have been worked. Before I worked the corn stalks I went through the rows and tried to pick off any seed heads on weeds that had grown up. There was some foxtail and some black nightshade weeds that had started to produce seeds. 
Speaking of black nightshade, this weed has become a major infestation in my garden. I didn't seem to have it a few years ago. On Saturday I also worked an area that had grown up with nothing but black nightshade plants. These plants had grown up since the buckwheat was planted. The plant does not get real big but it seems to be coming up everywhere and more of it germinates every time it rains.  Comment on this article |