Filed under: September 2016 | Tags: buckwheat, Grazing, honeybees, minerals, nutrients, Oats, Small Farming
September 3, 2016
This little field was my last winter’s cow lot. It was a rough field filled with hoof prints. I grazed it short in late July. Then we disced it all up to smooth it out and to open the soil up some. We next broadcasted oats from our bin and some buckwheat seed. The seeding is coming along good. I won’t put the cows up here until November. When they do get here they will have thick oats and the spent buckwheat to munch.
The buckwheat mines minerals out of the soil. When the plant dies back or is eaten by the cows, it gives up those minerals. The nutrients will be available for the following crop. I plan to plant some open pollinated corn in this spot next spring. The cows will get it until then. They will winter here again, depositing their manure all over this field. I will plow and prepare a seedbed for the corn. It should be a yummy place for the corn.
So, by fixing the problem of a rough field, I planted feed for the cows, suppressed weeds, mined some nutrients, used up some old oat seed and made a great autumn food crop for my bees. The blooming buckwheat is a favorite for all pollinators, especially honeybees. My cost was my time, a little fuel and $23.00 of buckwheat seed. It is a field of about 2 acres. It was most definitely worth my time!
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