H Weizen

Last fall we broadcast a white clover among our carrots after they were established. I am planning on planting sunflowers into this in a day or two. I am following Will Bonsall's advice and planting the sunflowers in hills of 3, spaced 3 feet between rows and 3 feet in the row. I will have 100 hills total (50 confectionary and 50 oilseed). They were started indoors a few weeks ago and are about 4" tall now and the true leaves emerged a couple days ago. In a week or two when the sunflowers are 6-8" high I will add pole beans, about 5 seeds per hill.

My question is: any advice on how to prepare the bed for transplanting the sunflowers in? I was thinking of scuffle hoeing little discs about 1 foot in diameter. Alternatives might be to increase/decrease the diameter of the disc, or to also work a strip connecting the discs-- maybe that would encourage the pole beans to seek out neighboring sunflowers? Thanks!

The wheat lives! In about 70% of the field, most of the plants are alive. The other 30% (concentrated in one corner) is sparse. I suppose I could replant that section but I've got other things to seed. Plus I'm curious to see how they'll tiller...

Thanks for your comments everyone. If I'm at this site next year I'll try to plant earlier and mulch more heavily.

Actually here's a follow up question: some of the dead leaves look snipped, would that happen on its own or is it evidence of some critters?

Thanks Joseph, that's really useful information about your wheat being green coming out of winter and also about the differing maturity dates for winter and spring wheat.

I dug up a clod with a few plants in it. The soil was basically frozen, after it thawed the roots looked OK. Or at least not decomposed. There is a hint of green just above the crown. Not thriving, but maybe surviving? I put them in the greenhouse as a little test.

Great point, thanks! I'll do that this afternoon and report back.

Thank you both! Since posting I did find this from the Unviersity of WIsconsin. But we did have several nights below 0 F, the lowest was probably -15 F. Most of that was with snow insulating the plants but there were one or two nights without it.

Planting a cover crop is a nice idea but I really do want a wheat crop... Is there any reason not to just hoe up half the field (it's about 1500 sq ft) and seed spring wheat?

I planted winter wheat (red fife) for the first time last Fall. It was a bit later than I wanted, about the third week of September in Northern New York (zone 4). But many of the plants got several leaves and started to tiller. Anyway the snow melted about a week ago and I wasn't sure what to expect but almost all the leaves are yellow or completely dried out. I've attached some photos showing a range of plants. (In case it's confusing, you're also seeing twigs and leaves that I used for mulch.)

Having never grown winter wheat before, I'm wondering whether this is normal? Are the leaves supposed to survive or does new growth come from the roots? Does this crop look like it can be productive? Thanks for your input!