Hi John,
Sorry, I maybe wasn't quite clear on my
intentions. I do NOT plan on planting rye the fall before. We do
have heavy clay soil here, and if I use rye for an overwintered cover crop, I
don't count on using that section for growing veggies untill next year. In
dry years I can use it and it works great, but on wet years it would be
impossible to manage without killing my soil structure. I may experiment
again, but I've also found that with our heavy soils, transplants don't do well
put into plastic that was layed down the year before because the soil is too
hard and wet.
In the spring we till our field and lay the plastic
mulch, and transplant. Then I plan on coming in with the drop
seeder/aerator to plant the fall rye. Since the rye has not been
overwintered, I don't expect it to get very tall, but it will grow short and
cover the ground, and compete with the weeds. Since I haven't done this
yet, I am concerned about one of the things you pointed out, and that is weeds
in the soil on the edges of the plastic mulch. I"m assuming I'll have to
drive very carefully so as to get the rye seed as close to the edge of the
plastic as possible, without actually driving on, or ripping the plastic.
Does that make sense this time?
Dave
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:05
AM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] mulching
pathways
So. . . do i have this right?
Fall year 1 Plant
rye
Spring Year2 prep and lay plastic plant at some point cut
rye as straw mulch
how is your equipment setup? you have a
tractor that is going to run in these rye planted wheel tracks? My
concern. . . you're going to have to sickle bar it to kill it. After you
have run a tractor to prep, lay plastic, and plant the rye will be lodged and
difficult to kill with any mower. Then you will have weed problems the
next year if rye sets seed. Also, rye will get 6' tall in june
(here). Are you going to have to access the plantings before the rye
sheds pollen?
How are you going to manage weeds in the disturbed
area before the rye is cut? If that were planted on may 7 and rye cut on Jun 7
you have 4 weeks of weed development on the plastic edge/ tilled area.
Also, if you have any drainage issues or heavy ground, that rye will
hold water like crazy in a wet spring. So your plots may be more
inaccessible?
I have considered growing rye and having it baled
in a separate plot.
John
On 3/1/2011 8:48 PM, Dalew Farms
wrote:
I'm a couple weeks behind in my market farming
list reading, and just getting caught up tonight. Very happy to see
the discussion about mulch/weed control in the pathways between plastic
mulch. I've been thinking about that same question lots here this
winter. As we've started using more and more plastic mulch, its become
a bigger issue for us. We used to use walk behind tillers to keep the
weeds down between the plastic, and still do, except as we grow more and
more veggies, that is one thing we're doing a poorer job at! I always
seem to use the philosophy that the plants on the plastic are doing ok
because the weeds in the path won't reduce yield, so I concentrate on
weeding a crop thats not on plastic. Unfortunately, I always get
mad at myself in the fall because we never do get back into the
pathways between the mulch, and end up harvesting melons or squash in
amongst a bunch of weeds!
Last winter, I told myself we were going to use
straw mulch between the rows of plastic, and apply it at the same time as we
did the transplanting. I was supposed to be strict about that, but we
got busy and didn't do it hardly at all. :( It is fairly time
consuming as others had mentioned.
What I plan on trying for this year (and this
time I'm really gonna do it! LOL) is to plant fall rye in between the rows
of plastic mulch. If anyone sees a problem with this, please let me
know! I'm hoping that by planting fall rye in the spring or early
summer, its not going to grow very tall without going through a winter, so I
won't have to cut it, and then won't have the worry of having trash flung
onto our crops. (The only crop we grow on plastic I'd worry about that
is for lettuce). I plan on planting the fall rye with a drop
seeder/spike aerater made for seeding lawns. You can buy these to
plant roughly 40" wide, and it could be pulled with our riding
lawnmower. I think using one of those would make it pretty low labour,
without widening the centres to 12' like someone else had wondered about to
use a seeddrill.
At this point, my only concern I"m wondering
about is if the rye in the pathways might attract slugs or anything that
might like to feed on our lettuce on the plastic? Has anyone else
thats been using any kind living mulch/cover crop between the
plastic been growing lettuce on plastic? And have you found any extra
bug problems because of the living mulch?
Thanks again for starting this
discussion!
Dave
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