Trying to do better

[jlane35]

I stopped to look at one plot quick this morning. Thank god for my exclusion cage or I would been disappointed. The last 3 days I’ve been getting 30-40 pictures, of multiple deer, every night. The deer ate every buckwheat plant down to a stub, I only found a few winter pea plants compared to what I saw a week or so ago., and the brassica are half the size of the exclusion cage plants. The winter rye, oats and crimson clover are the real winners here and I have thank you guys again for that.

 

[jlane35]

Here is the plot I was referring to.

 

[Drycreek]

View attachment 19936

Here is the plot I was referring to.

There should be a cage in every plot, but I fall short of that sometimes. It really is a help in gauging your success.

 

[HuronMtn]

No problem, ask all the questions you want none of them are silly.

You can mix as many brassica's, winter peas, or anything you want when you seed in the fall. A problem you might come up with is some of the brassica's need a summer plant date rather than a fall plant date to get bulbs. I personally don't do turnips anymore for a variety of reasons, but I do plant radishes in my fall mix for their leafs/tops. A second problem might be wanting to terminate the brassicas the following summer before they go to seed. Doing this without killing your clover could be a challenge. Just to be clear... I plant tons of things in my mix. It's not just wheat, rye, and clover. I'll plant 10 to 15 species sometimes just to have diversity. Some of the things I plant get out competed and never present themselves. Some of them don't appear to be there until summer stress when others struggle and they get a chance to emerge. I'm going to tell you this... it's not a exact science, you almost can't mess up. Research some plants, ask questions, plant things and have fun, pay attention to the results and go back to the one's you like. The only way to screw this up is to introduce or allow an invasive onto your place. I only buy certified seed, no bin-run stuff for me (except for black sunflower seeds, they've been clean for me). But as far as planting the wrong thing for deer or messing up a mix, I don't think you can. You might check out Greencovercrops smartmix calculator. It's pretty fun to play with and get some ideas/guidelines. SmartMix Calculator

I do this mix every year. I don't have to, the clovers will either be perennials that come back for several years or annuals that can re-seed themselves.

Catscratch has a good point about diversity. You can really learn a lot about your soils, weather risks, and deer by putting down more species than you think are necessary. It might seem like you are spending more money than necessary when you do it, but what you learn from that will pay dividends down the road. I try to put in complex mixes initially on a new plot and then simplify them based on what is working from the different mixes I have applied over a period of years.