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Tasmania Australia

Hi, just a general question in regards to planting and tilling in mustard seeds and plants.
I see that a lot are sowing mustard seeds are the harvest of their pumpkins.
When do you generally till in the mustard plants?
And after tilling them in, do you plant another winter crop of something until it is time to transplant the pumpkin plants out?

3/28/2021 5:50:45 PM

Syracuse, NY

this site is very slow at the moment and i know it's the boring way but for discussions about it previously you can type in

mustard seed

in the search window on the Home Page and have a few answers right away---eg

3/28/2021 9:13:59 PM

Springfield, VT

You want to till it in before it sets seeds. 3 weeks is the recommendation before planting anything else in the space.

3/29/2021 8:26:09 AM

Tasmania Australia

Thanks for the replies,
So from the sounds of things and please correct me if i am wrong here.
Put you get the mustard seeds in the ground pretty well straight after the pumpkin is out and by the time the mustard is ready to till in and the 3 week rest time after tilling, you should be looking pretty close to transplanting the pumpkin back in.
Dose that sound fairly right?

3/29/2021 4:51:49 PM

Syracuse, NY

Okay, I want you to know that i am NNNNNNOTTTTTT qualified to explain anything about mustard except how to put it on a hot dog in America, lol;
This will help you a lot, though:

Solarization may be a big task and you need to be sure that you need to do it if at all - just MY opinion, BUT, i've gone to the trouble to find out something here and have benefitted from it, so, here, do this:

You CAN open BigPumpkins.com TWICE, y'all...

You'll go to this Ron Wallace diary:

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryView.asp?season=2016&grower=22075

and once you're there, you'll have all of the entries along the left side of the screen, yes?
look at the top right of your screen for three (3) small lines going across - click on that and you'll see 'Find' OR you can hit 'Control' and 'F' and you MAY have a 'Find' function;

type in mustard, hit enter and every mention of the term mustard will show as highlighted all the way down through the diary;
hit Enter repeatedly (17 times?) and you should be able to see every entry of the word mustard. After June 24th's entry i don't see another mention of 'mustard' but read all entries to the end to be sure - you can use this tactic now on ANY DIARY! YaY!
Hell, do everything that Ron does and you'll have a few 2200-pounders, too, lol---

THEN you can decide after reading every detail if it's anything
you want to do and/or can do, etc.

Sorry for the drama but it is nothing that i myself have done and hope i never have to---that's probably why i've not been over 1,000 pounds yet, either, lol---good luck---eric g

3/29/2021 9:51:46 PM

Torrance, Ca.

I hope Ron does a diary again this year! Always fun to see and learn new things!

3/30/2021 1:34:12 PM

Partlow,Va

Seed the mustard at the recomended rate. It is easier to seed evenly with a fertilizer because of such a small amount needed. If the mustard is crowded it just doesn't do well. I do not cover the seed and it germs good in my sandy loam soil. It can handle some light frost BUT NOT A FREEZE.

I will plant it about one month before the last frost(about now for me); then get a second batch in by the end of June for two crops in a season.

3/31/2021 8:34:57 AM

Watlington, UK

In answer to your question, mustard does break down quite quickly once tilled in, especially if it's warm and the soil is kept moist. I keep a blackout cover over mine to keep the light out and moisture in. So yes 3-4 weeks should be ok.

3/31/2021 5:16:54 PM

Tasmania Australia

Thanks for the helpful replies, appreciated.
I might give it a go this season, not a real lot of information on it where i am from, so will be a good experiment to see how it turns out.

4/1/2021 4:54:56 PM