On Mon, 05 May 2003 13:16:20 -0400, Pat Meadows
wrote:

On Mon, 05 May 2003 11:38:35 -0500, Harold Olivier
wrote:

large snip

Sounds like a mammoth job! Wow.

I've left half of the garden flat and unditched and bedded (but like
the rest of the garden covered with mulch), and plan to sow it in a
cover crop, probably buckwheat if I can find it locally. I agree that
it sounds like the best cover for summer.

If you can't find it locally, you can buy it online from
Johnny's Selected Seeds:

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/index.html

So does Pinetree, at a somewhat better price:
http://www.superseeds.com/Covercrops.htm
I haven't yet checked with the two local farm and feed stores. I'll do
that tomorrow, on a trip to town to see my wife's doctor. If they do
have buckwheat it will probably be cheaper than even Pinetree.

In the quantities needed for a home garden, it's cheap. I
just called our local farm and feed store (Agway - I think
they're called 'Southern States' in the south) and they sell
buckwheat for 56 cents/pound.

Great price! I only need enough to cover about 350 sq ft, so one pound
ought to be enough. Even at Pinetree's price that small an amount is
cheap.
..
As for problems with Annual Rye, besides the sprouting inhibition, I

snip

One last point - LSU recommends trying marigolds and other summer
flowering 'annuals' broadcast in open areas of beds as a cover crop. I
can buy marigold seed in bulk locally, so I might try that if I need a
living cover within the beds. It supposedly helps to suppress
nematodes, although I don't know it they are a problem here yet.


I didn't know about the sprouting inhibition of rye. I
think I'll not use it for that reason.
I found the first sprouted seedling late today. I don't know how long
its been since I tilled the rye under. I used to keep a journal but
now I use a digital camera to photograph changes in the yard and
garden. It is lots less work getting the information recorded, but it
can take a while to find the information I need because I need to sift
through lots of images. Ah, here it is. I had the rye tilled in by
04/02, and completed the beds and mulched on 04/20. We haven't had
rain for something like three weeks, and I'm sure the mulch has helped
to suppress seed sprouting, so today's seedling is almost certainly
not the first that would have shown up if I had watered and left the
soil bare. It looks as though the inhibition doesn't last too long
after all.

Flowering annuals would make a nice cover crop. I don't
know if I can buy marigold seed in bulk - I'll look.

Thanks for all the information.

Pat
I ought to have said that I *think* I can buy marigold seeds in bulk
at the older of our two farm/feed stores. When we first moved here
from New Orleans 30 years ago that store sold a few different flower
seeds (I remember marigold, zinnia, and petunias, but there were
probably a few others) loose in quantities from a quarter ounce up, at
prices way below the packaged seeds, but I don't know if they still
do. I'll find out tomorrow.

Harold