The Problem With Rye As A Garden Cover Crop
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Rye can be a great cover crop for the home garden. But it can also be a regrettable cover crop. In this video I explain the problem with rye as a cover crop that everyone considering it should know.
For details about my Minibed gardening system... www.planetwhiz...
Two Resources for viewers of this video...
1. Arnuflo Riojas asked about the sickle. It is a medium-weight Japanese sickle made by Seikouba. Here is a link to one supplier: hidatool.com/item/1748
2. My TH-cam video showing how to sharpen pruning shears with sandpaper is here: th-cam.com/video/SqSWgbMWAfs/w-d-xo.html
Is your rye the same as "winter rye" sold at home improvement stores?
@@TheRainHarvester Yes
My first thought was he needs a good sharp sickle! Its amazing how much machine-assisted work can be replaced by sharp tools and the skill to maintain them. Nice video!
I plant winter rye in several of my raised beds which are quite high so we do the no till method. I use hedge trimmer and cut the rye which ends up getting about 18 inches high then starts to fall over, so will cut sooner in the spring like around 12 inches, leave the cuttings then weed wack it down to the soil level, leaving the roots in the ground, cover with a black tarp for 1 month or so, then sow my seeds into the beds.
I like it. 👍🏻
black tarps are toxic... no till is supposed to regenerate the soil not to continue its poisoning
I have been using a cover crop mixture (mostly rye) in my western Oregon garden and love the hummus it adds to the soil. When I'm ready to cut it down, I use a flail mower on my BCS. Then I till it in. In two weeks I'm ready to plant. Works well for me. Nice video!! Beautiful, neat garden you have.
I grow winter rye in my raised beds. I keep it cut short for the winter and spread it on the beds as a mulch. In the spring I under cut it and plant my garden.😊
Could you pls say a bit more? Do you cut it repeatedly over the winter?
@@jenn7047 It stops growing, (goes dormant) in winter.
@@ureasmith3049 Thanks, where I am it often has periods of growth.
@@jenn7047 Yep, in milder climates it does. He's in Upstate New York where they get a long deep freeze.
Do you realise what rye even means? It means…free bread!
Let the rye grow, just before garden planting, use a cultivator with shoes placed where you want your garden rows to be (I use two teeth 30in apart) then run across making all the garden rows. Seed garden crops. When they start to emerge, flatten the standing rye with whatever method you want (boots, board, lawn roller, cultipacker, or roller-crimper). The flattened rye creates a weed barrier mat under the garden plants. I have even broadcast dry beans down the bed defined by the 30in cultivator strips and rolled the rye down when the beans emerge so I have a wide bed full of beans. Rye works great if you understand old gardening practices can be shifted, new skills learned.
So i take it this method does not squish your seedlings?.
u sound like you know what your talking about
Before I switched to beds in the garden I would seed the rye in the fall and in the spring, with the rye about 3 foot high
I would use my push mower to mow it down and then plow it under. I don't have the water in my garden like you have
but I do water after the plowing to break down the clumps. I have a heavier silt soil and it makes a great base when I
use mulch of the rye with it. Thanks for sharing. Illinois gardener.
Very informative and easy to watch
So glad you demonstrated how to sharpen. I have the sickle, and I have the sand paper on wood (have had it for quite a while), but didn't know how to use it.
That looks like a good idea. We switched to beds over 30 years ago but the beds are much too big now. This might be a big improvement. I gave up after the third year of using Crimson Clover for a cover crop. I loved the flowers so much that I waited too long and the clover became a very tough rope tangle on the tiller something like your Rye would become. Its always something...
Great video. I might try this. Thanks.
the little sickle is cute. Great video
I'm thinking of seeding my 3' x 50' beds with winter rye (also upstate NY) with my Earthway seeder (disc #12), then in the spring, after a foot or so of growth, I'll 'mow' with my DR Trimmer. Sometime prior to Memorial day, I'll shallow till the beds to terminate the rye, then cover with landscape fabric until planting day...then uncover and plant. So not quite "no till", but more like 'low till'. 😊
For some reason it was really satisfying watching you cut the rye into mulch. Great video though thanks for the info
Beautiful plot, excellent method, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the great video. You are spot on. As it gets tall that carbon-nitrogen ratio gets larger. Breaks down oh so slowly. Great mulch tho.
I planned to tamp it down when it got to 12-18" tall, breaking it at the base and using it as mulch
You don't need to cut rye or any cover crop. You need to coz you have mini garden beds. But otherwise, you just use a wooden pellet to squash the cover crop down, job done. When in flower, annuals will die when squashed down. You need to make sure you're crunching the stems a bit with the pellet or plank. And then if your soil is still a bit poor, you can had compost and wood chips on top. 2 weeks later you can plant easily. That method is great coz it needs 0 till. It's also amazing to drain excess winter rain, and will decompact clay soils. I use a mix of rye, vetch, phacelia, chicory and tillage radish. It has two weaknesses though : 1) you can't plant anything until May. 2) If your Springs are dry, like we had this year, it's a nightmare. Had you left your soil all winter with a thick layer of wood chip, your soil would sill be moist in Spring. But since a cover crop is made to drain water, and since it builds up its biomass mostly in April, you're screwed if you got a dry April month. So we had to use pickaxes to plant tomatoes and other veggies through the cover crop + mulch, while the area that didn't have cover crop we could plant into after using the broad fork to decompact. It's not perfect.
Don't you have to make sure it breaks?
I've used it for years it never gets really tall I graze chickens on it during the winter In the early spring I mow it short then a couple days later I till in with my added amendments then wait till planting time
Thanks for the tutorial!
Sharp! 😅 Thank you.
I wonder how long it would take to break down if you chopped your cover crop down lay the mulch in the bed and spread out some compost water it in tarp the beds or cover them with something to keep the moisture in it should rot everything down way quicker
After gashing my thumb last year, I'll never again use a sickle like that without gloves. I probably wouldn't need to with a cover crop, though. My cover cropping experience isn't much, but I don't have minibeds, so I suspect I would likely just mow with the lawn mower before the crop got that tall, then cover with a tarp for a few weeks. I use a sickle for actual grain harvesting--wheat, buckwheat, barley, etc.
I like it... mow and cover is a great idea in a larger garden area.
That's amazing that you harvest grain. Do you have animals that you feed it to, or do you process it for yourself?
@@pambennett8967 Two years to respond, but maybe you'll get this. I didn't realize I had received a comment that I hadn't responded to. Anyway, yes, I do plant grain for my own consumption--not animals--primarily wheat and corn. Wheat takes a lot of work to process (not as much as some), but it grows through the winter and is harvested in early summer. It therefore uses utilizes garden space at a time when I otherwise wouldn't be able to grow a high calorie crop, and it's pretty good at suppressing cool season weeds as well. It's essentially equivalent to rye if you wanted to use it as a cover crop, but not quite as tall. Corn is less versatile and grows in the summer, but it pretty easy to process. I have also had good success with spring barley, which is a very fast growing grain crop and seems more resistant to birds pillaging the crop than wheat, possibly because of its long awns.
I have done sorghum both for sugar and for grain. I find the grain bland, but it's intermediate between corn and wheat for hand processing. Sorghum syrup production using kitchen equipment is doable, but not at scale, so really it's only good for making a few pints of syrup as a novelty.
@@bobbun9630 wow thanks for the comprehensive reply. Worth the wait!
would it not be easier to cut smaller pieces as you work your way down the stalk?
Wow too much learning, Thank you!❤
What about crimming late spring and using it as a ground cover?
Great video!
Good information thanks
Love your videos man awsome great info appreciate it
works great on my prunning shears, I even cut myself, nothing to worry about. thanks
What if you cut the rye in the spring...will the roots decay for memorial day planting?
I just planted my winter rye cover crop in 4x8 raised beds. My plan was to let it get to 12-18”in the spring. Then chop it with loppers a few times with the last cut right at soil surface. Evenly spread out the green tops and cover with a tarp for 2-3 weeks. Then move the cut rye aside and plant into the beds. My warm season veg and flowers typically get planted middle of June in MA. Do you think this is a reasonable plan? Thanks for your time and thoughts.
Sounds good. Worth a try. The remaining crowns will want to grow. The tarp cover may or may not prevent that. I’m not sure. 👍
You could use a scythe and clear each minibed in one swipe ;) Be hard to chop it up though ;)
I do have a scythe, of the European style. It is a beloved tool. I ❤️ the work of scything. 👍
great vid
I'm wondering if I'm going to have a hard time with this ryegrass as a cover crop. I'm planning on mowing it down before it goes to seed however often I need to and tilling it up in the early spring with my tow behind my mower tiller. Do you for see me having problems? I'm able to till lawn so shouldn't I be able to till this ryegrass?
If the soil can be tilled (not too wet) you can till it in and it will be no problem.
Your videos are informative and to the point. Thank you! I've only used rye cover crops in my beds for three years in my no till garden. I have found it, after cutting it down, difficult to plant in. It's as if I am planting my grocery crop directly into a lawn. Am I broadcasting the seed too close together? Now I broadcast the seed by hand because I'm thinking I only want cover crops in my 3' wide beds. Am I going wrong in my thinking here? Should I broadcast seed in my whole garden including the walks?
You might want to try hammer planting your seeds in your beds. Works very well for me. th-cam.com/video/PzmLOYbklvU/w-d-xo.html
Plant starts helps. Alternatively I spade a cut for seed like the big farm notill drills do. I crimp the rye and leave it as a mat. Cutting a slot with the spade makes your rows easier to see when the plants are small.
Can you share with me the name of the tool you use?
The sickle is a medium-weight Japanese sickle made by Seikouba. Not cheap, but a quality tool. Here is a link. hidatool.com/item/1748
I have a sythe. If that's how you spell it. 2 different blades. I do no till and the hens love the rye seeds
What about the seeds? Won’t they sprout in your beds if you mulch with it or are you cutting before seeds are viable?
I’m taking the rye off the beds in the spring before planting my garden crops. It’s long before seeds develop. Except for two beds I let go to seed on purpose last year.
Hi, thank you for your video! You said you live in upstate NY, I do also, just north of Syracuse. Do you ever allow people to visit you and your garden?
No. Sorry. I'm an introvert. 🙂
I wonder how many loaves of bread you could make with it if you waited for it to mature
I agree with some of these comments. I was told to just mow it down as it is starting to flower. I have also seen some just crimp it over. You do not need to till it in.
Would rye be a problem for pots?
youre supposed to stop the growing before the seeds start getting hard. at that point the plant is taking nitrogen and not feeding it so this should be mute. cut it and cover with silage tarp to kill it.
We have used winter ry e in our garden as well as in our fields. If weater doesnt allow timely incorporation, mow it off with a rider or a batwing mower. Let it lay a day or two then use a tiller or I have used a soil finisher in my fields. After you work it in, dont plant for 4-5 days. Your soil biology goes into decomposition mode.
Is using rye hay bales for mulch cover ? In the garden fine ?
Yes. I’ve used rye straw bales in years past.
@@herrickkimball I just found some for 75 per ton seems like a good deal
Simple answer. Mow and till after.
That’s what we do, live in Florida and heat kills it
Agree, Winter Rye is probably not the best cover crop for no till gardens.
Mature rye with stalks is good feed & scratching for chickens
Would they grow in tropical areas?
I don't know.
Before you follow his advice on the sickle -do yourself a favor and buy a high level cut resistant glove for whatever hand you don't have the sickle in.
In some conditions where plants you are cutting are wet or have woodier stems especially if your sickle is getting a little dull it will slide right up the stem and slice you open before you realize what even happened.
They are cheap, don't get in the way of you gripping or holding the plants , and reduce your risk of cutting any part of yourself by probably 99.9%
You sound like a Granger salesman.
I quit tilling 3 years ago. I weed eat my rye into the bed before it gets too high.
Awesome!
Why are you still tilling? Knock them flat and plant between them.
so the whole point is you think people dont have a powerful enough rototiller?
That wasn't the whole point of this video. It wasn't even part of the point.
Just roll it and plant through it. Not need to cut or till it. There’s your mulch.
It is easy to mow it down with a riding lawn mower. Then till it in so the nitrogen will bleed out into the soil. The carbon material will then feed the biome throughout the summer.
Hedge pruners are safer and easier than that cutting tool. Simply cut a level at a time. I do that with my corn stalks before I till them in.
That rye needs to be in the soil to put organics back. Using it as a mulch is not as beneficial because the carbon stalks become hard, making it difficult to feed the soil.
I won't plant any grass like plants in my garden. It's too much work for little old me.
Nice video, thanks.
I'm thinking of letting the rye grow until spring and then cutting it during the milky stage when the seed is being formed. If you do this supposedly the roots die and you get a nice mulch material you can work in. Afterward, I can plant directly into the mulch. Check out more detailed info on it here: th-cam.com/video/1SfFrGOTtMo/w-d-xo.html
Just stomp it out at that stage bending it over flat and transplant or seed into it as a mulch
Dragging a pallet with bricks works great too
make some good Rye bread.
Rye are you kidding me never plant rye trust an old farmer you will never get rid of it