What it is
Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is in the Polygonaceae (Knotweed) family. The fastest summer cover crop — flowers in a month, feeds bees, smothers weeds, then breaks down quickly.
How to grow it
It wants full sun, water it low, and give it tolerant, even poor soil. Target a soil pH around 5.5–7.0. Space plants about Broadcast apart. Expect roughly 30–45 to bloom. Warm-season annual.
How it's used
Buckwheat is used: cover; seed is edible groat.
🔎 How to identify it
- Heart-shaped leaves
- White flower clusters
- Reddish hollow stems
Edibility
How to grow & propagate buckwheat
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate buckwheat
This family — sorrel, dock, buckwheat, rhubarb — grows easily from seed, and the perennial members (sorrel, rhubarb) clump up and can be divided in early spring. Buckwheat is so fast from seed it's used as a quick cover crop, flowering in about three weeks.
Growing buckwheat in Texas
Give it full sun and tolerant, even poor soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Time your planting to our long warm season and watch the frost dates at both ends; the live weather tool on this site is built for exactly that.
Keep moisture even, especially while it's young — deep, less-frequent soaks build better roots than a daily sprinkle.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly 30–45 to bloom before you're harvesting. The part you're after: seed (groats).
Making more for free
If you want more, let your healthiest plants mature fully and collect the seed once it's dry on the plant — then store it somewhere cool, dark, and dry until next season.
Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.