Growing Buckwheat

[Digeroo]

Has anyone tried growing buckwheat, where did you get the seeds.

[Digeroo]

[GRACELAND]

Why and what for ???

[Beersmith]

I have heard some people use this as a summer growing green manure. You could try searching on line for suppliers of green manure seed.  I found GREEN MANURE selling it at £1.45 for 100g or £7.45 per kilo.

[ed dibbles]

I grow it. It grows really quickly with flowering beginning in a few weeks, perhaps three weeks from a late spring sowing, though longer at other times.

Insects like the flowers which is the reason I grow it, The seeds while easy to collect are not all that easy to dehull, the seed coat is hard and inedible. They don't ripen all at once.

As beersmith says the seeds are sold for green manure but once you have grown some there is no need to order more simply save some seeds for the following year.

As a green manure it is quite easy to dig in. As an insect attractor it I excellent. As a food source it is too fiddly for me

[Malcolm Brown]

I have buckwheat seed from Mr Fothergill, it does OK.

[Vinlander]

If you want it as green manure you need a lot of seeds.

They are a useful non-cereal grain crop and are sold in most supermarkets as hulled groats - this means only the pale tan coloured​ skin is still on.

I get 80-90% germination from them and you get 250g for less than the price of a seed packet.

And quite honestly the sell-by date is a lot more reliable than the sow-by date on seed packets.

Cheers.

[Digeroo]

I did not realise I could sow supermarket buckwheat.  I will buy some and give it a whirl.
Many thanks for the replies. 

I have found a green manure source for £3.40 a kg though this also means petrol to go to Moreton on Marsh to get it.