My first vetch harvest - help!

[Veganbill]

Hello
I have just finished planting a food forest of 400 trees (200 more will follow) on a 7 000 square meter stretch of land where vetch was planted last year before we started our permaculture food forest plan. The vetch will be ready in July, like it was last year.

My father in law usually would harvest the vetch with agriculture machines and make bales with them, sell them off at 10 bucks a piece. Then he would leave the ground bare until October when he would add more vetch beans, plow the ground and flatten it out.

Now, I intend to use the permaculture method. I plan to harvest the vetch old style, cutting it with a hand tool. I would like to learn how you guys proceed in doing this exactly.

- Do you harvest it all or leave some behind?

- What will cover the ground after it is harvested.

- How do you sow the seeds? Dont birds just eat them all up?

- Is there an option to leave the vetch in place and not harvest it at all? is that better for the earth to rehabilitate itself? Will it then sprout naturally in october?

- Is there a second ground cover crop I can use until october (I would love to have another crop of vetch or other nitrogen fixer. Vetch really thrives and seems to attract thousands of ladybugs to my land).

- Whatever I plant in July, I will have a 60 or so honeydew melon seedlings ready to plant amongst the whole crop. I will also have an amaranth patch, carrots...

My plan now, apart from the ground cover, is create a path that cuts the land in half and add drip irrigation on its side. Then I'll put my lupin seedling and flowers along that path, to give my ladybugs a humid place to go to and establish permanent colonies.

Thank you

[eco4560]

Remind us where you are Bill so we can give you climate specific advice.

Is the vetch intended to be a green manure, a ground cover or a cash crop?

[Veganbill]

It was my father in laws cash crop, but he gave us the land. If I can still harvest it and continue a food forest with the annual cash crop then it will have been a great example for villagers here to adopt permaculture techniques. They harvest the vetch and sell as fodder for cows.

I haven't decided what to use vetch for. I like the green manure idea but I have no clue of its advantages.
Green manure, cash crop, ground cover.... they are my options. What are their advantages, disadvantages and how do I proceed after harvest of a crop or after it drops down to the ground and rots. Do I replant seeds (buy more) or will the beans sprout themselves? Wont they just rot too? How do I plant?

The problem is I studied so much about permaculture but focused my studies on the food forests, companion planting and what was available to me in Turkey so I got all my trees, shrubs, perennials and flowers all planted and/or ready.... and I planted amongst the vetch. Now I have no experience with the vetch except for what farmers around here do...cut it and sell it. I want to know what you guys would do in my place.


Coldest temperature in winter: -7
Warmest temperature in summer: 35
Cool nights even in summer (we are at 1200 meters altitude)

Watering is a bit of a problem but we will have access to water from aquifer. I just want to save as much as possible and later on I just want to rely on rainwater harvest. I have 60 tons of cisterns.

[Pakanohida]

Hello
I have just finished planting a food forest of 400 trees (200 more will follow) on a 7 000 square meter stretch of land where vetch was planted last year before we started our permaculture food forest plan. The vetch will be ready in July, like it was last year.

My father in law usually would harvest the vetch with agriculture machines and make bales with them, sell them off at 10 bucks a piece. Then he would leave the ground bare until October when he would add more vetch beans, plow the ground and flatten it out.

Well, that made me weep for the soil.

Each time this occured, the vehicles pack down the soil a little more, and the nutrients that would of been returned to the soil is removed and sold off. Repair your soil.

Now, I intend to use the permaculture method. I plan to harvest the vetch old style, cutting it with a hand tool. I would like to learn how you guys proceed in doing this exactly.

- Do you harvest it all or leave some behind?

- What will cover the ground after it is harvested.

- How do you sow the seeds? Dont birds just eat them all up?

- Is there an option to leave the vetch in place and not harvest it at all? is that better for the earth to rehabilitate itself? Will it then sprout naturally in october?

- Is there a second ground cover crop I can use until october (I would love to have another crop of vetch or other nitrogen fixer. Vetch really thrives and seems to attract thousands of ladybugs to my land).

- Whatever I plant in July, I will have a 60 or so honeydew melon seedlings ready to plant amongst the whole crop. I will also have an amaranth patch, carrots...

My plan now, apart from the ground cover, is create a path that cuts the land in half and add drip irrigation on its side. Then I'll put my lupin seedling and flowers along that path, to give my ladybugs a humid place to go to and establish permanent colonies.

Thank you

Use a scythe, leave it in place ((ie. Chop and Drop)) and even let it reseed so you don't buy more seeds.

Nature allows sister Vetch to grow more then enough seeds to disperse into the ground, be tilled in by birds, and feed some birds. The birds are your insecticide force after all.

Consider growing other plants as well so you do not increase N too much since vetch is N fixing. Buckwheat (edible mind you) is a good choice, as other other numerous ground covers that can be chopped n dropped to increase soil life.

Lupins are also N-fixing in case you didn't realize.

[Veganbill]

Sounds good.

I'll chop and drop.

There is no buckwheat in the country I am in. I looked everywhere. They have in Ukraine but I can't go there just for them.
I would love buckwheat

I know lupins are N-fixing, that's why I started them. I would love to plant sweet lupin also if I could find it.

If you would go about planting buckwheat, how do you go about it? do you just throw the seeds and walk away? or make individual holes?
I'd love to visualize that part of permaculture planting.

[eschacres]

Fedcoseeds is saying that peas-vetch-oats are very good for soil building. They claim 8000 pounds of biomass per acre. Page 116 of the Fedco 2012 catalog. Oats come up first, pulled down by the peas, which are pulled down by vetch. "4 inch mat of vegetation should be disked or mowed and incorporated in autumn. They seed at 212#/acre. Their seed mix is, by weight 71% field peas, 15% oats and 14% hairy vetch.

see: http://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs.htm

good luck,
esch

[eco4560]

Green manure, cash crop, ground cover.... they are my options. What are their advantages, disadvantages and how do I proceed after harvest of a crop or after it drops down to the ground and rots. Do I replant seeds (buy more) or will the beans sprout themselves? Wont they just rot too? How do I plant?

Green manure - you cut it back and dig it in (or drop it on the surface if you don't like digging like me) before it sets seed. The aim is to turn nitrogen and other nutrients back into the soil - your 'yield' is improved soil. The disadvantage is that you have to buy seed again, and you don't get a cash benefit from the vetch (but you might later down the track from the better production from whatever you plant once the soil has been restored). You would use this approach as an interim measure where you want to grow something else later on.

Cash crop - you cut the vetch before it seeds and sell it. On the plus side you get money. As Pak points out - using machinery compacts your soils. You deplete your soils as the nutrients that were taken up by the plant from the soil has left your property and the only way to replace it is to bring stuff in from somewhere else - there goes that monkey you just made. And the fertiliser you buy may not build the soil - it might just make the plants look good.

Ground cover - Leave the vetch to set and drop seeds, die and go back into the earth. It improves the soils (not quite as much as green manuring as more of the N gases off when the plant dies and goes brown compared to cutting it green), keeps the ground protected to reduce evaporation, erosion, heating and stops unwanted plants getting a foot hold. The vetch should self seed again next year (I haven't grown vetch so I may not have that detail correct though....) so you don't need to pay for more seeds. Ground covers are useful between and under productive trees. If you plant a mixture of them you will get natural succession - as one dies back another will be starting to germinate. It's the least amount of work and expense, but if you want to grow melons there later this approach won't work as they may disappear under your ground covers, and the carrots wouldn't want to share space.

Coming into winter in a temperate climate - the Eden Seeds catalogue I have in front of me suggests the following green manures - barley, beet, broad bean (fava), clover (red or white), corn salad, dun pea, endive, fenugreek, kale, lupin, maku lotus, medic, mustard, oats, rocket, radish, rye, spinach, turnip, wheat. They recommend broadcasting the seed over cultivated soil, and digging it in a month before the crop you intend to grow.

You might find buckwheat in an organic food store rather than an agricultural place.

Does that help?

[Terra]

Vetch is pretty persistant to the point of becomeing a weed , its hard seeded so will keep comeing up for years if you let it or sections of it seed down , so maybe sell some , leave some to seed and use some to make compost .

[Veganbill]

Thanks for the info I should get a few goats to eat the stuff and poop it back out

[eco4560]

That would work too! Then you could make goats cheese for that cash income you need....