Plant wheat??

[Richard]

Wheat???

As Marion & I further prepare house for August wedding plans (making ponds, laying flagstone, waterfalls, Great Wall of Greenback etc..) we recently had dozer come in and do a clean up job in the woods where the lumber-dudes cleaned out many of the trees.

Question: We now have a hillside that is rough graded via the dozer and need to plant some grass. Our feeling is the hillside is still too rough for grass and time isn't on our side (with all the rock laying and all) to box blade hill for while. Her brother came up with idea of planting some wheat saying that not only will it come up fast and green, it will die after a year. His logic is that we can plant the wheat, as it comes up, overseed with regular grass and we can get the quick shot of roots we want, the green we want and over time, convert it to traditional grass.

Wheat???

I thought wheat was responsible for creating the line "For
amber waves of grain..."

Is this brilliant (as are many of his squirrelly ideas) or a mistake?

tia
Richard

 

[JimT]

I would plant buckwheat....It will do what you want and if you hurry, it will have pretty white flowers by mid/later August depending on the weather. It is a little more heat and drought tolerant than wheat and has a relatively short growing cycle. Around hear a lot of farmers put it in after they take off the oats/wheat since it needs a hard frost before it can be combined. My wife and I got married at her parents farm and we had the people walk from the parking area to the ceremony though a path that we cut in the buckwheat. It was very impressive to the city folk.

 

[cowboydoc]

What we always do is plant oats and grass at the same time. The oats will give you some cover for your ground while the grass gets growing. But unless you can cut it somehow it will just stay tall and won't let your grass grow. The ideal situation is to plant the oats and grass at the same time and then harvest the oats and then you're left with some cover for the grass that is still growing. I don't see why you couldn't use wheat but I'd still plant the grass at the same time. Hard to overseed. If your soil is already to go just plant it now and water it and you will have good grass in no time.

What I would do though if you have no intention of using the oats or wheat is to plant your grass like you want and then put straw over the top of it and water it everyday. If you do this you will have grass in a few weeks.

 

[Richard]

Jimt, I (and I think she would also) like the idea of the flowers.

Richard, harvesting isn't much of an option unfortunately. Our soil isn't REALLY ready to go, would need probably good half day of box blading to smooth over and soften. That is a good 1/2 day I can use to lay my pending 12 tons of flagstone /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif. Sadly, time isn't on my side now with all this %&*(%$ rain we have been having. JUST enough to make everything muddy & messy. Ever try to lay a liner in a newly dug pond that is 1/2 full of water??? /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

In honor of Dan McCarty /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
RichardISoLoveTheMudSquishingBetweenMyToesInMyNewPondAsILayMyLiner

 

[RobS]

Richard, you could also plant "plow down" rye, or annual ryegrass. It's real cheap, grows fast but won't be a pest for you later. Good luck with those wedding plans /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

If you plant wheat and let it go to seed, (get a head on it), then you are going to have 'volunteer' wheat for years to come.. maybe forever. You probably do not want stalks of wheat in your grass, once the grass is well established. When you buy fescue seed grass there are often several kinds of grass seed in the bag. The first is a fast growing grass that will take root and develop quicky, but it will not survive the winter. The second grass seed is a slower growing but more robust grass that will actually be your lawn after a few years. I don't know if other grasses are like this or not... By the way I am not recommending fescue grass. I planted some and I don't particlarly like it./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[Henry]

I always recommend that people plant crown vetch on rough hillsides. It grows to about a foot and a half tall, and has nice pinkish-white flowers and a green folage. You don't have to mow it and it pretty much will grow anywhere. It's only draw-back is that you once you plant it, you got it forever. Take a look at http://www.musserforests.com/prod.asp?p=CROWNVH