Planting trees and habitat improvement.

[BrianL]

Took some pics last night and started tilling around them. Some that I thought where dead are coming up at base.

[BrianL]

Others look real good.

[BrianL]

Still have a lot of weeds to pull on many of them

[BrianL]

Before I started tilling around them.

[unclefish]

Thats a nice project you have going there! Are you tilling to plant food plot strips in between the tree rows?

[BrianL]

Tilling really because it is easier to deal with dirt than grass, however, I am thinking of putting about a 8' strip of milo down the middle between rows of trees. I have 4 rows heading north and south and 2 rows at far end of pic that go east and west. On the the rows that goe east and west, there where 4 but the two closest to the big tress died. I guess the root system of the big ones took too much of the moisture out of the soil on that end. SO I made that my food plot area. I'll post pic of my food plot this last winter.

[BrianL]

Pics of food plot from last fall.

[BrianL]

Wow the ground is hard, tilling is slow, AND I HATE PULLING WEEDS!

[Stoof]

Awesome project. If you can leave some of the ground cover it will help retain moisture especially if it is native grasses. You might think about planting a few different kinds of trees this fall. Diversity is a healthy thing in nature.

[BrianL]

I was supposed to get 400 pecan to mix in and 600 more sawtooth this spring, but didn't work out. They turned the coolers off before I had a chance to get them picked up.

I wondered if the ground cover would help or if the amount of water required for ground cover kind of even things out. It is a lot easier to keep clean with a box blade than mower.

[BrianL]

Looking better. Much diesel and time spent.

[KHoes203]

(see below post)

[KHoes203]

Personally I would not till it. Tilling causes you to loose soil moister which you dont want. I would spray the weeds then sprig or get you some native grass seed and let mother nature do what it does. Just my .02

[Billybird]

THis may end up being the slowest/longest DIY project in TBH history. We bought a little piece of land outside of town, and plan to build a home someday, but in the meantime I decided to start to improve the wildlife habitat. It is about 10 acres of overgrowth, 30 acres of cropland, 40 acres of pasture.
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MOst of this area has been converted to farm or cropland so the amount of cover is very limited, and most of the cover I do have is right beside the house. I decided to start planting some hardwoods, and since I'm in my 40s, the only one that made sence to me was the sawtooth oak. I placed my order and stated planting this spring with the help of the wife. I had bigger goals than what we ended up with, but I did get about 800 trees planted. I choose to start the planting by making a 40 yard boarder around the crop field and pasture.

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It was a very wet spring, then went straight to HOT and DRY, but we did get about 800 in the ground. Keeping weeds out has been an issue, and still working on the best way to handle it. I've sprayed, tilled, and last time used a box blade. So far the blade seems to work best. NOtice soybeans are up, this was just a few days ago.

Before bladeing the area
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After blading
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Watering has been another problem, but rigged up a barrel and waterpump to help. It is 55 gallon barrel, and takes about 600 gallons to water one time.
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I'll try and keep the progress updated, but it will be a SLOW process! THe trees I planted in the pasture didn't fair too well. Most were either pulled up or stepped on by the cows and died. I'm going to have to rethink how I handle the cows. I'm either going to have to put up an inner electric fence or take them off. It is nice not to have to do any shreding, so I hate to take them off completly, but we'll see.

Please tell me what is your final goal for your project?

[BrianL]

Personally I would not till it. Tilling causes you to loose soil moister which you dont want. I would spray the weeds then sprig or get you some native grass seed and let mother nature do what it does. Just my .02

I agree to a point, but the grass I had was taller than the trees. Bermuda is so Dang expensive. Going to try to figure out the ground cover thing. May try shredded paper and plastic. But your right about it drying out faster.