Lovro Kancjan

Hello everyone,
does anyone have any experience planting with push seeders through heavy (1 inch and more) cover crop residue?
I tried it with the earthway seeder but it doesn't work well at all. I was watching and it seems like the Knapik seeder may work, because of the double disc opener. But would it work in system with more residue?

Hey guys,
anyone tried this before? I was using seed balls this season in my vegetable garden, and although I had quite some success, I feel like it would sometimes be beneficial to sow already sprouted seed balls in the garden. I'll be trying to grow a commercial garden next year where spacing will be very important and just sowing seedballs randomly isn't ideal. Wouldn't it be great to see just how many seeds have actually sprouted (and in which balls)? It'd be much easier to experiment indoors. Most importantly, you can then space them however you want!
If you have any tips, please share them

Best regards, L

I'll probably put twigs back and use the grass on my raised beds.
I took your advice and started raking the area. There's a lot of exposed soil now, which is great! Thanks again!

John Polk wrote:Most seeds need a good, direct contact with soil in order to germinate, and set roots.
If you just sow on top of a thick leaf layer, you are likely to have mostly fresh sprouts laying on top. The direct sunlight will kill them.
If you have chickens there, they will happily eat all the fresh sprouts laying on the leaves.

ty ty
Should I scatter the leaves and twigs back after I sow the seed, or would that just make it more difficult for them to grow?

So, I decided to try frost seeding as Sylvain suggested, but I have another dillema
The site, where I want to seed, had two big willows that we cut down in the fall and now there are leaves and twigs everywhere. At first I wanted to remove them, sow the seeds and cast leaves and twigs evenly all over the site. But this would require so much work... I could just sow over the site without doing anything. Would the results justify all the extra work, though?
Thanks

Hi

I have an exact same dilemma. I think seed balls won't help much, though. Seeds will sprout for sure, that shouldn't be a problem. The question is whether the roots of your crops can penetrate into the soil and through the roots of the grass, before the it starts growing really fast.

I'd say the key is to seed some fast growing, hardy crops, like mustard (I've never sown anything you have on hand, but they should be just fine), as soon as possible, when grass is still 'sleepy', but just before the rain. Better risk another frost - mustard I've sown this year survived one without a problem. Mowing after you've scattered the seeds seems like an excellent idea.

I'm not familiar with Pacific NW at all, but I believe it rains a lot, doesn't it? This probably means that your grass dies back completely in the winter and starts growing rapidly in the spring. The positive thing is that your crops should be able to penetrate the soil much easier here, as opposed to places with less rainfall, where the grass' roots make for a much tougher competition. So, yeah, timing is really crucial. I don't know, but Fukuoka would probably agree

Anyway, good luck to both of us, right?