Like I’ve posted about before, I’m working on Tim Peter’s perennial rye, making selections and trying to get improved seed.
With normal annual rye, it dies off at the end of the year so you don’t have to worry about killing it. In my case, out of the 300 or so plants I started with, I selected about 20 for transplant to another place to save. I had to kill the remaining plants, so I first cut them down to about 50cm high to make them easier to manage, then covered them with woven black plastic. I did this last fall.
I’m busy preparing garden beds, so I just pulled the plastic back. I was a little amazed at what I found. The ground was covered with very good quality and clean straw. If I had wanted to use it where it was, it would have been no problem to just plant right into. In my case, I needed mulch for my garlic, and it was very easy to just rake up and move. I sometimes use plant debris for mulch, but honestly I buy a lot of mulch (mostly straw from local farmers) because it’s just easier. I’ve never grown any plant myself that made such good quality mulch in useful quantities.
In the picture you see a few weeds poking through. This is mostly because I used overlapping pieces of black plastic and some weeds grew through the edges.
After I raked up the straw, I had another surprise. My camera didn’t take a good picture, but underneath was very rich chocolate brown and crumbly dirt. I’ve never seen anything like that in my garden before either. My garden is on top of an old peat bog, hundreds of years old, mixed with a lot of clay. The deep roots of the rye plants (these can get to about 2m deep) pulled up lots of great nutrients and even some of the color of the peat. The dirt also had a great smell! Don’t you just love the smell of rich dirt?!
I’m also growing some of his perennial rye. I planted late, into modules, and was a bit late getting them transplanted. They are flowering before putting on much bulk, and I wondered if you had cut any of yours back late, and if so, did they flower again.
Hi Deano,
I find the maturity of Tim’s rye to be very variable, and not very determinate. I cut different plants back at different times, but they were producing seed heads on a pretty ongoing basis.
The genepool of this rye is pretty large, and through selection a lot of things are possible. I think if you want plants that give a second harvest, you can save those that do by digging them up and moving them to an isolated spot to save seeds from them next year.