Discussion Board

Have any of you ever heard of planting these in the late Fall over the whole garden area and then rototilling them into the ground in early March?

My Uncle has a garden every year that is spectacular!! His corn grows outdoors a good 8 feet tall with dark green stalks and huge ears, his tomatoes are producing huge 4-5"-across tomatoes and big string beans....

So I asked him his secret--when his garden is done in the fall, he plants "austrian peas" over winter and then rototills (sp?) it all in and this supplies all the nitrogen he needs. I thought this interesting!!

Also he plants his tomatoes/melons over black plastic which helps to heat up the ground. He puts straw between the rows and his garden always looks so nice. The black plastic is taken up out of the garden in Fall but the straw is rototilled into the soil.

He also said Corn can not hardly get too much nitrogen. He uses 21-0-0 on his corn!! Now if I can just remember all of what he said today. I better write it down somewhere

I did a quick Google search. It seems Austrian peas are planted as a fall cover crop. Legumes, which include peas, fix nitrogen in the soil, hence your uncle's comment that this crop supplies all the nitrogen he needs. I used to plant some vetch, also a legume, along with some winter rye, in late September or early October, depending on when the areas were done producing. It just has to be up and grown well enough to withstand the winter cold. I tilled it all in in the spring.

I like vetch--blooms can be pretty. I think it might do the same thing as the austrian peas.

Well, I ordered 10 pounds of these peas to plant end of October or early November. We will see how it works....lol

I was wondering what you did Plumeria on your cover crop. I got a mix from Johnny's. I am trying to get as much mileage out of the ground as I can so doing a fall crop.

I thought about putting the cover crop cover down for each section I pull up as I pull it out. Like soon tomatoes will be going, and the first round of green beans. I guess any little bit you can get it has to help.

Now, this brings a question to my mind. I read a year or so ago, not to till the garden every year. It disrupts the worms and stuff. I tried to hand dig my garden this year, because I was trying to get to the bottom of my bermuda grass problem. yeah right Anyway I did end up tilling also. Any thoughts from you all with more experience? I always tilled in the spring before. It sounds like LeeAnne's uncle does his twice a year (fall to get the straw in and spring)

good question Faith--I'll ask my Uncle and tell him what you said about disturbing the worms, etc. I'm very curious what he will say.

Just got the Austrian peas today--we have a good six weeks before we plant them. I'm interested in seeing if this helps our garden.

There is one difference between my Uncle's garden and mine. He is retired and works at it full time. I'm working and don't have the time he has. But he has a good "sense" about how things grow.

I'll let you know what he says Faith--about rototilling.

You might ask AnnaS her thoughts on tilling. If I remember correctly, she is a fan of the Ruth Stout no-till method, but I'm not familiar with it. Mostly I tilled by hand, turning under the cover crop a few times as it decomposed. If DH was doing it, out came the tiller. Of course, the first time he tried to use the machine before the cover crop was decomposed, he learned why I did it by hand, what with having to untangle all the plant stems from the tiller blades.

On your bermuda grass Faith, perhaps this article I found will help you to understand why you have such difficulty with it. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7453.html We had some ghastly perennial that we tilled in, this was long before I understood how wrong that was, that we literally had to build a screen for and put the soil through it to remove all the little pieces, each of which would sprout. Never made that mistake again.

Thanks for the article. This is why I tried to dig it out prior to tilling. I know one other weed (darn I learned it name not too long ago) gets wrapped around the tiller blade. The bermuda grass is so thick that it's a real pain when it gets wrapped. So I learned to try and clear it out first,

I'll have to read the article better, but I noticed it said mulching with wood doesn't help. I can say that mulching with newspaper didn't either. It grows through. This is what our lawn is made of, so it sneaks in even with me trying to dig it out. I kept this trench of clay around my garden hoping that maybe it wouldn't come in.

This it was the best, though not perfect, and I used my garden knife often to cut the grass from the lawn that comes into the garden (it even comes in on the high raised bed) and to dig and cut it for pulling out.

So I wonder where Anna is.

I roto till once a year and then double dig and till every 3 years. We have horrid clay soil so you have to just to get the good compost mixed in.

I read an article about the ruth stout method... IT is not a do it once thing it takes several years to get it correct with leaves and straw layers.. I guess once you get it then it is good for years and years after.

It also takes a different kind of mind set for gardening...versus planting in dirt. But I think it is a great idea.

We layer fall leaves on top of the empty raised beds.. and then it gets rototilled in in the spring, with any potting soil and compost neccesary to raise the level of dirt up to the top of the beds.

I hate bermuda grass. THat stuff is so difficult to remove. I usually hand pull and dig it out.. and when it gets in the raised bed you usually have to digg all the way down to below the botom of the wood sides to get all the roots out.

Faith and everyone, I had a chance to talk with my Uncle yesterday afternoon--and he said he tills at least twice a year or more. He said it doesn't seem to hurt his garden area at all.

I don't know, maybe our soil is different here in the Northwest. Tilling often doesn't seem to hurt it. Our soil has more sand in it and drains well.

I have a tiny amount of bermuda grass in our garden area but keep trying to pull it up as much as possible. Seems I can never get all the roots.

Thanks leeanne for checking. I think it's a matter of opinion on tilling anyway. It makes some sense it may do some damange but it's impossible to get the ground workable in the spring without it, especially if you have a larger area.

I tried laying down leaves one year but they all blew away. Luckily it was mainly in the neighbors yard and she doesn't care I'm trying the ground cover and going to try and put it down whenever I pull out. Maybe if I have luck, that will choke out some of the weeds.

I am convinced there is no end to bermuda grass. I have dug and followed and dug and followed a piece double my height and then it broke. I think it all is one continuous string. I joke that it goes to h*ll and back. Yes, in raised beds it's a huge pain. Last year my son and I went all the way to the bottom of this old raised bed I use. 15 years ago my Uncle planted a couple bulbs. Well they totally took over the bed. I've been working for three years to get them out, plus the weeds. So we took two weekends working on this small raised bed, and still we got the bulbs and bermuda grass.

It is a constant battle.

ROFLMAO at the giant Bermuda grass string.

I swear that stuff grows legs at night and travels in my yard.


When you were talking about the bulbs in the bed .. We had a similar experience. We got some daffodil bulbs.. hubby wanted them in the raised bed where he could see them so I put them there for him.... just along one side of the bed.. they stayed there for two years but worse than that was that they brought with them some Ragweed.. which I had never seen before and which really has pretty leaves on the plants so instead of ripping it out like an intelligent person would I left it waiting to see what flower showed up on it...

Yeah! exactly... it took over that bed... so this year I have been yanking out any little start of it I find as well as having double dug that bed to find as much of the root pieces as I could to get them out of there... and still the fight goes on...

Then there is the Purslane in another bed... IT is supposed to be tasty maybe I will embrace it and eat the sprouts of it.

Weeds!

oh my I never thought that you can bring in weeds off plants or bulbs especially that you buy. Ragweed of all things. I'm allergic to that. I know it is hardy and meant to survive.

I have a lot of purslane too. It wasn't that long ago that I had never seen the stuff, and we got some. Now it's everywhere. Easy to pull out, but that doesn't seem to matter.

Puslane is hard to eradicate because it puts blossoms as soon as it has two leaflets so it makes thousands of seeds and starts right form teh get go.
It can be steemed or sauteed and is supposed to be quite delicious. I will try some and let you know how it tastes.

LOL you know that is a west coast weed.. so it had to travel to your yard from somewhere else.