Planting Buckwheat

In the past few weeks I managed to get a driveway installed, the front field (3.5 acres) cleaned, mowed and tilled and do a LOT of researching and planing, I live and breath farming. We are half way through the RV restoration, we now have a Chevy Suburban in the driveway (or rather, in the woods because there is not enough room in the driveway…) to pull our new heavy duty trailer, and today I am going to pick up a garden tractor and a two wheel tractor. Needless to say I spent all the money we had in savings, and guess what, I did all this and I am still married! Ha! Life is good!

Anyway, I left my house in the city at 5 am Sunday morning and made the one hour drive deep into the country.

It was quiet, cool and foggy. And I was by myself. Alone. As in, no one else under the age of four (or under any age for that matter) in the car to ask a gazillion questions. I was cruising down a country road while Jason Aldean and Tim McGraw were singing about green tractors and short skirts at the county fair. It was a good start for the day.

I parked at 6 am and started working right away to try and avoid the heat that will come latter. According to the first phase of the plan (in color above), I have three sections of land to work and two compost heaps to build. Lets leave the compost for now and concentrate on the three big sections.

The blueberries/Blackberries area (big rectangle on the bottom left) will be planted with summer cover crops which will be tilled under in about 5 weeks. I might be able to sow it again with Summer cover crops or not, depend on how fast the green manure will decompose. If I can’t sow it again with Summer cover crops I will wait for Fall and plant it with Winter cover crops. Those will be tilled early Spring next year. I will amend the soil and start planting berries.

The two long rectangles at the top right mark the sites for my please-God-help-me-get-those commercial mobile greenhouses. They are each 200 feet long by 30 feet wide.

Site 1 (left) – Plant Summer cover crops. Divide to two 100 feet sections. In the South section I will let the crop go to seed so I can harvest the grain for us and for the chickens to eat. In the North section the cover crop will be tilled under in about 5 weeks. Than I will divide it to 30 inch beds with 12 inch walkway in between. Those will be my vegetable beds. I think that I will be able to fit 8 100 feet beds but I didn’t do the math yet. I am not sure if I can start planting vegetables this Fall or not due to the wedding of my lovely brother which is in the holly land of Israel smack in the middle of Fall/Winter planting, the middle of September. From all the 365 days of the year he had to get married that day in the middle of September, right? Cause he couldn’t get married, say… January 21st, what’s the fun in that? He is my only brother who I love to death so I might have to let this one go… Or maybe not, we’ll see.

Anyway, if I can’t plant veggies for Fall/Winter harvest I will compost the beds very well and plant Winter cover crops which will be tilled under before planting veggies next Spring.

Site 2 – Here I will plant Summer cover crops and let them reseed themselves. I will cut the plants to use as the green layer of the compost. At the end of the Summer I will till the field and plant it with Winter cover crops.

Here is the Berry field…. (65ft X 125ft)