Tilling in Cover Crop

Today I tilled in the winter rye grass that I had planted earlier this spring to create a "green manure" for the patch.   The cover crop helps get the biology in the soil, helps loosen the soil, helps suppress weeds and adds organic matter to the patch.  Once tilled into the soil the biology in the soil eats it up pretty quickly.  I like to till it about 2 weeks before the vines will be growing over the tilled area so it is fairly broken down by then.

I also did the 2nd half of the amendments in the soil.   I think not adding all of the amendments in the early spring is a good idea because a lot of it can leach out of the soil by this time of the year.   Particularly in sandy loam soil like I have.

The soil her dries out considerably fast.  After a good rain storm in Denver you had to wait at least 24 hours before it would be dried out enough to work it.  Here is maybe 6-8 hours.  I'll be watering much more hear and spoon feeding fertilizer to the plants more frequently here in Midway.

I tilled in granular seaweed, humic acid, nitrogen, phosphorous, alfalfa pellets, zinc, manganese, iron and boron into the patch today.  May have over done it a little, but again I think leaching is going to be an issue here so I'm hoping a little more is a good thing.  Most all of the amendments were outside of the root zone where I was tilling.

The 747 plant continues to be my "best" looking plant.   Nice grower, but it large leaves are getting it really beat up.  The wind was relatively bad this last week so there are a number of bent leaves and a lot of the leaves have small holes in them where they have flopped back in the wind.

The 1685 plant has been a stick to this point.  Side vines have only started to come on in the last couple of days.   It should start filling out soon.