Buckwheat

I have often considered growing buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), but never got around to it until recently.  I enjoyed growing buckwheat, I saved a little seed, and I plan to grow it again.

Buckwheat seed is eaten by people, animals can eat the leaves, it apparently grows well in soils lacking fertility, people grow it as a cover crop to increase soil organic matter and biological activity, and bee keepers overseas often rave about buckwheat.

This year has been another dry year, so I decided to plant some things to help my bees leading into winter and decided to add buckwheat in the mix.

I know what you are thinking, growing a few square meters of flowers won’t make a lot of difference. That is true, it won’t make a huge amount of difference, but making a little difference may be the difference between starvation and having my hive just making it through. Feeding sugar syrup is good, feeding sugar syrup plus planting extra flowers is better.

Buckwheat starting to flower

There was not much time before frosts came so I needed something that grows fast. I have heard that buckwheat can flower in as little as four weeks. That sounds unrealistically fast, but I thought I would give it a go. I had a few garden beds that would be empty until spring, I planned to dig compost and manures through them in winter, so they were perfect for autumn planted buckwheat. I am told that buckwheat produces large amounts of both nectar and pollen. My bees need both of those. As my hive was pretty close to the buckwheat, and the next nearest hive was about a kilometer away, my bees should collect the vast majority of the resources.

I planted some buckwheat seeds, I wasn’t sure what density would provide the largest nectar yield, perhaps spacing them too close would make them grow slower and have less flowers overall, perhaps planting them close would mean the same number of flowers per plant and more nectar per square meter. I don’t know, so in one bed I planted them thickly, and in the other they were planted further apart.

The more dense planting appeared to provide more flowers overall and oddly enough more flowers per plant.

Buckwheat cotyledons low planting density

Buckwheat cotyledons high planting density

The seeds germinated in a day or two, which was faster than expected, the cotyledons were odd shaped little things. Then they started to grow true leaves, these were heart shaped and look similar to fish mint. At first I stressed that my fish mint somehow invaded these two beds, smelling the leaves quickly dispelled my fears. There was no doubt, this was certainly not fish mint.

I keep hearing how fast buckwheat grows, and how quickly they flower, but mine didn’t look like they had done much after germinating. Two weeks after sowing seeds most plants only had 2 or 3 true leaves and were not very tall. Then I looked closer, even though they only had 2 or 3 true leaves and were only about 2 inches tall they also had flower buds! How can such tiny plants have flower buds forming? How remarkable.

Apparently they begin flowering when still tiny, and continue to flower as they grow. This is perfect for my bees as it means they had extra resources to forage on leading up to winter. Not only will they have extra resources, no one else is growing buckwheat nearby so it increased the diversity in their food. I have no proof of this but I think giving bees diversity in food helps the colony stay strong.

Buckwheat with heart shaped leaves

The frosts killed the plants before they got a chance to set seed much, so this crop was mostly for the bees and as a green manure to feed the soil. Next time I will try to plant earlier so I can also save more seed and will never have to buy seed again.

White flowered buckwheat

Light pink flowered buckwheat

Mixed colour buckwheat flowering

My buckwheat grew a mix of white, pink, and red flowers. Most of the flowers were white, but I prefer the pink and red ones. The pink or red flowered buckwheat tended to have red stems while the white flowered ones had green stems.

I only saved seed from the darker pink to red plants. I would love to stabilise a variety of pink or red flowering buckwheat, but to do that I would prefer to save seed from a lot more plants.

Pink flowered buckwheat producing seed

White flowered buckwheat producing seed

For now I don't sell buckwheat seeds, perhaps one day I will have stabilized a pink flowering buckwheat variety and will sell seeds from them. Or maybe I will sell mixed buckwheat seed that has a high percentage of pink flowering types. If I ever do sell buckwheat seeds they will be listed on my for sale page.