Cover Crops and Weed Control

[GigaBuist]

Fun week.  On Tuesday I decided that my little pumpkin/tomato/pepper/cucumber patch needed hoeing. When I finished that on Thursday after 16 hours in the field with a gorram $13 hoe in my paws I was looking for a Better Way.

Started kicking ideas around with my business partners (little brother and my old man).  A walk behind cultivator was my idea, but that probably wouldn't save us a whole lot on labor.  Brother suggested more plastic between our plastic covered raised beds.  That's expensive.  Dad was thinking about a tow-behind cultivator but that's problematic because things like tomatoes will be too high to drive over.

Then dad suggests annual rye grass.  Plant that between the rows, let it grow, flatten it out when it reaches 2-3' in height.  I research it slightly.  Looks like a good idea to me.  Works great for pumpkins, produces 25% more yield, you only lose 11% of the crop due to rot instead of 27% on top of that. 

It's a "mulch" of sorts -- but it actually puts more nitrogen into the soil that it takes out.  Pretty common among grasses.  Reduces soil erosion, generally a win-win.  I just have to figure out how to seed the stuff now and flatten out 3.5-4.25 miles of the stuff in 3' wide swaths that have a "U" shape to them.

The other hidden bonus is that in year 2 we want our pumpkin patch to be something that kids can run around in.  Having soil that isn't exposed will keep the kids fairly clean.  Basically kicking around in a field for 30 minutes with exposed soil will leave you filthy.  If we can make the place a mix of plastic covered beds, pumpkin plants, and grass covered, there's no more dirty kids.  I like this.

[RoadKingLarry]

Better farming through chemistry.

[vaskidmark]

Is there a need to actually keep the grass out from under the pumpkin/tomato/pepper/cucumber plants?  Eliminating that issue just leaves you to fabicate either a U-shaped roller or a gang-hitch of three rollers with the outboard two capable of tilt.  The first design requires that your U-shaped swath be uniform and consistent to match the roller, while the latter requires that you accept that "some" grass will not be flattened at all and "some other" will not be completely flattened.  Presuming you are going to plow the stuff under as soil enrichment between crops I can't see the need to be overly neat.  But then philodendren dies under my care.

stay safe.

PS - Does Annual Rye (AKA "Builder's Instant Lawn") actually stay alive long enough to work for this purpose?

[GigaBuist]

Is there a need to actually keep the grass out from under the pumpkin/tomato/pepper/cucumber plants?

Yeah, you don't want them crowding in too much, but that's easy in our case because all of the plants are on 2.5' wide plastic beds.  The field looks like a wave.  Plants are on the peaks and the grasses will be planted in the valleys.  2.5' of plastic 2.5' of soil alternating.

PS - Does Annual Rye (AKA "Builder's Instant Lawn") actually stay alive long enough to work for this purpose?

It should stay alive until the first freeze IIRC.  All I really need it to do is stay alive long enough to reach 2.5-3' of height and then I can flatten it out to make our protection mat. 

[GigaBuist]

If anybody was actually waiting to see how this turned out... you're going to have to wait for another year.

Due to the drought I never found a good time to lay seed.  By the time we got rain the weeds between rows were already 3' high and the large vine pumpkins had  already grown into the area between raised beds.  At this point the only thing I can do to neaten things up is take a weed-whipper through the areas where the pumpkins aren't growing into the valleys or run around pulling 3' tall weeds out from other areas and that last one ain't happening.

It's yucky, but everything will still grow alright. Well, I think it should.  Hell, I've already got pumpkins nearly the size of a basketball going in some areas.  It'll work jut wont' be pretty like I wanted it.

And now we know to plan for planting rye grass.  Plus we've got a giant sprinkler that can irrigate the area before we even pull the rows.  Might as well do it all at the same time I figure. Heavy water, pull the rows, plant rye grass, plant the pumpkin seeds, then hook up irrigation a couple of days later to the drip line system.  Should work.

[grampster]

I just let the grass and whatever grow in my garden.  doesn't seem to bother anything.  I have jalapenos up the ying yang, 5' tomato plants, yellow and green beens, greena and red peppers, and really nice cucumbers, leaf lettuce, cabbage, and a couple other tasty things that I can't remember their namesm, but swmbo does and only one of us has to know...

[grampster]

Apparently, after reading my last post, the bourbon is beginning to work.

[RoadKingLarry]

Select
http://www.cdms.net/LDat/ld837046.pdf

I told ya, better farming through chemistry.