You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: GROW YOUR OWN SOIL DRILLS - TILLING AND BUILDING THE SOIL WITHOUT BREAKING A SWEAT
Congrats on being my first fulllength read on Steemit! Haha. I'm new. Anyway, I was wondering, how little of water can radishes survive on? It seems like it would be a good way to srtart out some areas on my 20 acres, but we do not have water rights, so irrigation for large or many areas is a no-go. Do you have to really dig much to plant them in the firs t place?
I like the idea of using them as a cover crop and soil building. How do you think ground squirrels would like them? They're real pains out here and we have no garden this year due to them. (We're going with raised beds next year!)
Thanks for the informative post! :)
New here too. I used tillage radishes along with legumes as a fall cover crop when I was converting a couple of acres of former dryland farm ground back to native grasses when I bought my place three years ago. I'd just broadcast seed with no tillage in September on the high plains. I imagine the birds ate quite a bit of the seed but you can find it in bulk at reasonable rates.
They survive on pretty little moisture -- my locale average slightly over an inch/month for Sept/Oct before the temperature is sufficiently cold to winter kill them. I only ate a few and left the rest to winter kill and decompose over the winter. Make nice little empty pockets for the spring moisture to sink into the ground like a natural aerator.
I just scattered them on the existing ground on my acreage and have not watered them. The ones in the post were from the garden, but others are growing on my land without "being planted" or watered, I just spread the seed.
Not sure about ground squirrels, but they may leave them alone.
Yeah these little buggers, they're like mini prairie dogs, they eat everything.
So you didn't even have to scuff up the land?? Awesome!