2015 Knucklehead Grow Blog

[Rickey60]

Turnips are good also. I plant them for both the garden and myself. I love turnips and mustard with cornbread.

 

[mountbaldy]

Knucks,
Nice looking year! Temps up this way are starting to plummet. We saw upper 30's last week. Scared me to death! My poor corn just tastled! Anyhow, taters are a big thing in my neck of the woods. Are area grows all the seed taters for Idaho. That said I was recently visiting with a very successful tater farmer the other day and he filled me in on the green manure he uses.. He does a combo of mustard greens, some tall member of the grass family related to corn and turnips. He grows that a season. Rotates in wheat or barley then plants his taters. He produces some of the highest quality taters around. Means baccy and taters are related seems like a green manure regimen similar to that would work well. The only chemical spray he uses is to control aphids but what he uses is easy on lady bugs and no urea or nitrogen additions at all.

Anyhow, nice job!!

Cheers,

Joe

 

[DGBAMA]

I vote we over seed a couple hundred pounds of winter wheat in a week or so, and have a good dove shoot in a few weeks.

 

[mountbaldy]

I vote we over seed a couple hundred pounds of winter wheat in a week or so, and have a good dove shoot in a few weeks.

Amen to that!! It's coming up real soon!!

 

[DGBAMA]

I will split in on the grain.

 

[Knucklehead]

Knucks, Nice looking year! Cheers, Joe

Thanks, Joe. It was my easiest year so far. Admire for the aphids took most of the work out of the season for me. We had a drought this year and I found out how little water tobacco actually needs. I will never irrigate again. Grass and trees were dying but the tobacco just kept plugging along.

I vote we over seed a couple hundred pounds of winter wheat in a week or so, and have a good dove shoot in a few weeks.

Sounds like a good idea. We should pick up a couple cases of clay pigeons and do some target practice. I haven't had the shotgun out of the case in quite awhile.

 

[Chicken]

I need to pull my stalks up also....this year I picked every leaf I had..no matter how small it was....

My best year yet.

 

[Smokin Harley]

clay pigeons, dove shoots...I sure miss those days.

 

[deluxestogie]

...this year I picked every leaf I had..no matter how small it was...
My best year yet.

This year, for the first time, I ignored all the crappy leaf at the bottom of the stalks. My happiest year yet.

Bob

 

[Smokin Harley]

I picked my dried up mud lugs at first but I think it was because of excitement of having leaf. But I used them for the first experimental kilning. After the "real usable leaves" were ready, I pretty much forgot about the lugs. But its still very enjoyable to pick up a few of those sun dried/cured leaves while topping and after crumbling them in hand , taking a nice deep breath of the tobacco aroma . Satisfying.

 

[Knucklehead]

Tillage radish is the way to go if you want add to your soil, the sheer volume of organic material a tillage radish produces is hard to believe until you see it. It produces large diameter (up to 3/4") foliage shafts that grow up to 42" tall. Each one of those will produce literally hundreds of flowers and at least 50 - 75 seed pods on each one. The radish can grow up to 3" diameter, although 1" is more likely and they grow from 6" to 24" long. Most of mine grew about 8" to 16". When they were tilled in the organic material was very high. Some of the radishes had succumbed to the heat and were already decomposing.

I have planted Rye, Oats, Hairy Vetch, Turnips and Rye Grass for cover crops and nothing comes close to the sheer bulk of material produced by this "Ground Hog Radish." Until I find a better replacement, this is my cover crop of choice. Imagine if I had fertilized it like I was supposed to instead of putting it in unfertilized soil. I can't wait to plant them over both gardens this fall

I've been looking into the Tillage Radish since Rickey's post. This sounds like a wonderful cover crop. The tap root will reach down way further than turnips. It will break up compaction to a depth not reached by most farm equipment. "Taproot typically reaches over 30 inches". I may order some of this and give it a try.
http://covercropsolutions.com/products/tillage-radish.php



Watch Video
It's the taproot!

The superior genetics behind this amazingly aggressive brassica taproot are found only in the Tillage Radish®. No other cover crop radish has a taproot that drills through compaction like it's not even there.
In fact, that's how this amazing cover crop got its name. It drills down where steel cannot reach, it tills the soil naturally and better than any tillage equipment possibly can.

• Easy to plant, reaching full growth within 30 days
• Taproot typically reaches over 30" – deeper depending on soil and planting conditions
• Drills through soil compaction thatstops other cover crops cold
• Soaks up N, P, Ca and other key soil nutrients
• Winter kills when temperatures reach mid teens for a couple nights
• Rapid spring decay results in massive soil voids for air and water movement
• Spring soil warms up and dries quickly for better planting conditions
• Improves drainage and air movement
• Helps suppress nematodes
• Attracts earthworms like a magnet
• Shades out winter annual weeds with dense foliage cover
• Plant-available N released during radish decay
• N, P, Ca available when new plant seeds need it most

Thanks Rickey!!

 

[Smokin Harley]

want to try a piece of horseradish? Talk about an aggressive taproot ...
Lets put it this way ...you better like Horseradish to plant it. Because once it establishes itself, its not going away any time soon.

For cover crop I was just thinking of an annual bluegrass or rye . Keep the other pain in the butt weeds at bay and I can till it under or just leave it until spring once it frosts. maybe even if I don't get any soil to raise my elevation, it will suck up any standing water faster than it will drain or run off. Maybe keep the mud down a bit too.

 

[Brown Thumb]

I like it, My wife grows one hell of a Radish so I guess I got to put her to work.

 

[Knucklehead]

I like it, My wife grows one hell of a Radish so I guess I got to put her to work.

How long is the tap root on a normal radish?

 

[Knucklehead]

Photo of all my bud bags from this season except for the one still in the patch. The heat mats are unplugged, they're just drying down naturally in the basement. I turned the humidifiers down to 45% to hurry up the drying of the last of my tobacco stems. Seed will be ready to clean soon.

 

[DGBAMA]

I hadn't even collected my first bud bag yet.

 

[deluxestogie]

That table heaped with party favors looks inviting. I have one bud bag hanging so far.

Bob

 

[Gmac]

For those who can't buy tillage radish seed locally, here's a link https://hancockseed.com/daikon-radish-seed-1-lb-bag-free-shipping-636.html ---free shipping

Gmac

 

[Chicken]

In my area they plant a lot of clover for a cover crop..

 

[Knucklehead]

In my area they plant a lot of clover for a cover crop..

I'm planting clover and those deep rooted radished. The clover will put nitrogen into the soil and the radishes with 30" tap roots will aerate and loosen the soil very deeply. The radishes will also provide a lot of vegetative matter to rot or till into the soil.

I have pretty heavy red clay.