I was halfway through turning in this droughted buckwheat cover crop when a light bulb went off in my brain. I bet the massive hordes of Lil'Farm fanatics who read this blog obsessively would be very interested in seeing this image, as well as knowing what a lovely and easy to raise pseudo cereal buckwheat is. I'm about to plant strawberries here in about three weeks. I planted it about a month or so ago, and it grew like a weed. A cultivated, fast growing, green manure providing weed. Buckwheat is pretty much the easiest cover crop to grow. Aside from needing a little water, it requires very little, and will grow in 4-8 weeks, and give you lots of biomass. It does best in low nitrogen crap soils. Lucky for it, I can provide said conditions. If it gets going quickly it does a nice job of smothering out other weeds. And if it was buckwheat pancake time it would be real easy to pull a crop off it, and still turn it in for some organic matter. Also eat more buckwheat pancakes- even if your on the Carrboro-Diet. Because that stuff is gluten free. I soak the groats in water over night, then blend them up with egg milk and salt and cook em up. easy ass pancakes right there.
I should have made an audio track for this post, because the bees are working it over. Buckwheat is a bangin beecrop in some places, it makes that honey dark. But it's also covered in all kinds of other pollinators. They seem to be working certain sections in crews, maybe as the flowers become more open.This harrow is about to make them sad.
The only downside is that in bloom it smells a tiny little bit like cat pee, or rather cat pee that has been on a couch and some hippie couldn't be bothered to go get some Natures Miracle and get that smell out, so they rubbed it with a wet rag instead. Not overwhelming, just every now again your walking by thinking gross, smells kinda like old cat pee. Its not though, its just buckwheat smell.
