Sunday, July 12, 2015

Planting buckwheat and Harvesting Peas

After July 4 I dragged the new East strip two more times with the danish drag and the soil just got better and better.  As the trash got (painstakenly) thrown over the fence, the digger worked better and I started to think about using it for a crop of buckwheat.  My intention is to let the buckwheat go to seed and then cut and thresh it for flour.  Wonder if it will work??!  The seed was drilled in to about 1-1/4" and it was well covered up.  Rains came on Sunday night right on schedule.

I also planted a row of bok choi and parsnips.  Have no idea if the parsnips will work--they take at least 3 weeks to germinate!  A little further over I put the last of the lettuce transplants in the ground, and replaced the bolted spinach with a row of carrots.  The row of carrots from May is outstanding.  They could use a thinning (not sure if I'll get around to that), but they are weed-free and strong.


Big roots continued to come out during the process.  Some of the stumps I found while dragging, and others I found with the seeder.  There were a couple of real monsters and I'm real happy to get them out of there.


Note bene: Do not let overwintered rye grow past May.  Rye should be broadcast, not drilled, so the sod plows easier.  And I think the clover cover crops should be fall plowed (maybe experiment with the different strips...).


Margaret visited on the 11th and threw herself onto the row of little marvel peas.  We picked and shelled for maybe 90 minutes and this yielded about 6 pounds of shelled peas, all blanched, packaged, and thrown into the freezer.  She even took more peas (unshelled) when she left the next day.




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