Buckwheat For Honeybee Forage. 9.6.2020

 I think the major honeybee forage now is dandelion and queen anne's lace.  About late June or early July, I planted an area of my garden with buckwheat.  I think it was early July.  The seeds germinated quickly, and grew rapidly.  They are now blooming.

From what I read, the buckwheat is a fantastic bee forage.  However, the nectar supply is in the am, so you have to watch then for honeybees.  This morning, the flowers were covered with honeybees.

They are still very active on borage and oregano flowers.  Next year I'll have to plant a lot more borage and oregano, I think.  Also, deer don't eat those.  I remembered that in the past, deer ate the buckwheat plants.

I tried growing buckwheat in 2015.   I don't remember a lot about it, except it looked about the same, and deer ate it all.  This time it's in the fenced garden.

Since buckwheat seems to bloom so quickly from seeds, I planted a second approx 8 foot by 8 foot area with more.  I don't have a lot of room.  That was the potato area.  If I had the ambition, I could clean up another equal or larger area for the same, but there is more firewood to cut.

This photo was in afternoon and using cellphone, so apparently not much nectar.  They are all over the neighboring oregano flowers.

As I understand it, the entire buckwheat plant  is edible by for fowl, so after it stops blooming, I can feed it to the chickens and ducks.  Also, if there is time, we might get "grain", the buckwheat seeds.  That's an off-chance.  I read that buckwheat mobilizes bound phosphorus in the soil and stores it in the plant, so if it is turned over as "green manure", there is more phosphorus available for future plants.  It also crowds out weeds and shades otherwise unused soil.  So, it's all good.

Starting Buckwheat for Green Manure / Cover Crop / Bee Forage. 7.21.15

Bed prep for buckwheat.  7.21.15

Today I took a little time to prep the former borage bed for Buckwheat.  I planted the borage late winter.  In this location, the borage plants grew to 5 foot tall, some 6 foot.  Might have been influenced buy the organic nitrogen, and might have been due to whatever was already in the soil.  The soil has been used, either as a dumping location for fireplace or grill ashes, or was a burn location.  Lots of biochar and ashes.  That may not be a good thing, for many reasons.  But the borage grew like gangbusters.

 The borage has dried out and was done blooming.  I wanted to collect seeds, but not up to it.  It pulled out  very easy, leaving an almost weed-free bed.  Quite a bit of water was needed to soften the soil, then worked it shallowly, smoothed with garden rake, spread buckwheat seeds, smoothed a little more, and watered.

Original book source: Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz 1885, Gera, Germany.  Image via commons.wikipedia.org

From what I read, buckwheat is an excellent plant for conditioning the soil (green manure, cover crop).  It crowds out most weeds - which apparently borage also does - and is killed by the first frost.  Buckwheat grows in hot summer, and has a fast life cycle.  I don't know yet, but am hoping it will bloom in the fall.  Buckwheat is also considered excellent bee forage.  A comment on solarbeez blog states buckwheat started flowering 3 weeks after planting.  Mother Earth News states some bloom starts as little as one week from planting.  From Mother Earth News:  "Buckwheat is one of the best sources of high quality protein in the plant kingdom. It's easy to grow, harvest, and process; it prospers on soils too poor for other crops; and it's not susceptible to any major disease or pest problems. On top of all that, buckwheat is an excellent smother crop for weed control, a superb green manure crop, and a legendary nectar source for honeybees.".  From this extension website, Buckwheat is not tolerant of hot, dry conditions.  I'm thinking it will need the same watering as I am currently doing for squash and corn, until fall arrives.  Never having grown buckwheat, some experimentation is likely needed.  Also from the extension site:  "Buckwheat can be raised for grain if planted by mid-July in northern states or by early August in the South.  If we want to try, according to Mother Earth News, a gardener can get a usable amount of buckwheat for food in 40 square feet - a little more than my raised beds.  I guess, for us or for the chickens.

The seed package was very large - 5 pounds.  Plan: pull the weeds out of the 3 raised beds I lost to weeds, and plant buckwheat.  The area planted here is about the same as 1 1/2 raised bed.  Ditto for the garlic bed, once the garlic is harvested.  Ambition and energy, those are the limitations.