phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
Here are some update pics of my no tilled, surface broadcast, strip plots. The entire plot is 1/3 acre, and is basically an exaggerated "L" shape with the short leg of the L being more or less an 8000 sq ft rectangle, and the long leg a 6000 sq ft narrow and long, but irregular shape.
this pic is from around June 20th. this pic was taken a few days after i mowed the WR/Crimson/MRC strips in preparation of my brassica planting. The WR/Clover strips are the dead/mowed strips, and the green growing strips are oats and crimson clover planted back around May 12th...those strips were brassicas last year.
here is a pic from Saturday after mowing the oats/crimson strips to prepare for an early september planting of WR/oats/crimson/MRC. This pic is from pretty much the same vantage...but about 2 months apart. The WR/clover strips are now growing with DER and PTT. The brassicas were broadcast into the dead thatch on July 13th....so the brassicas are about a month old now.
The oats had gotten to about 4' tall and were setting seed when i mowed them about 2 weeks ago with the weedwhacker. I took them down to about 12-14" and then this weekend i was able to borrow my buddy's DR walk behind mower to really take the stubble down. This think is a beast!
here are some other views of the brassicas that i broadcast into the mowed and sprayed WR/clover. I havent added any fertilizer as the soil test recommendation was to add only N at the rate of 75lbs to the acre....the soil test was not factoring in that these strips were planted in rye/clover....so i wanted to see what i could get out of these strips with out adding any N.
this is what most of the turnip bulbs look like so far...about 30 days growth.
I'm still seeing some germination in odds and ends areas along the margins of the brassica strips where i some seed fly astray. that seed had to sat there for close to 30 days before germinating.
here is the waterhole i installed in spring of 2014. Still undecided on its usefullness....i have a cam set on it...but i rarely get pics of deer directly and obviously drinking from it or even standing in it. have plenty of pics of them standing along side of it and i do see tracks leading down into it from the uphill side. if anything i think its more of a location issue. i have a nice year round creek at the bottom of the hill...i'm not sure water is a very low hole in the bucket locally....but i figured if the deer are in the plot and water is there versus down the hill they would take advantage of it. I dont think its the liner....but who knows. All i know is that it isnt nearly the attention grabber i was hoping it would be.
I have two areas where the brassicas are spotty....not too much of a surprise to me...these areas were completely littered with junk from when this property was my grandfather's. he was quite the tinkerer/inventor so he lots of "inventory" that he left out here for when he might need it to make something. lots of metal, plastic, rubber, wood, a urinal, tires...you know sh!t you might need at a later date...lol. I soil tested this area separately from the rest of the plot. the thing that jumped out on the soil test results was very high zinc levels. Any way the turkey's found the bare dirt and turned it into a dusting pit. some of their dusting spots are 6-8" deep. I'm kinda nervous they will pick my september cereal/legume planting clean before it germs.
and i found this patch of purslane in the brassica planting.....never seen it in my plot before. I was gonna pick some for the salad bowl. Should i be worried enough about this stuff spreading uncontrollably and get on it ASAP....or not bother? i've read that it can spread rapidly and is a prolific seed producer.
this pic is from around June 20th. this pic was taken a few days after i mowed the WR/Crimson/MRC strips in preparation of my brassica planting. The WR/Clover strips are the dead/mowed strips, and the green growing strips are oats and crimson clover planted back around May 12th...those strips were brassicas last year.
here is a pic from Saturday after mowing the oats/crimson strips to prepare for an early september planting of WR/oats/crimson/MRC. This pic is from pretty much the same vantage...but about 2 months apart. The WR/clover strips are now growing with DER and PTT. The brassicas were broadcast into the dead thatch on July 13th....so the brassicas are about a month old now.
The oats had gotten to about 4' tall and were setting seed when i mowed them about 2 weeks ago with the weedwhacker. I took them down to about 12-14" and then this weekend i was able to borrow my buddy's DR walk behind mower to really take the stubble down. This think is a beast!
here are some other views of the brassicas that i broadcast into the mowed and sprayed WR/clover. I havent added any fertilizer as the soil test recommendation was to add only N at the rate of 75lbs to the acre....the soil test was not factoring in that these strips were planted in rye/clover....so i wanted to see what i could get out of these strips with out adding any N.
this is what most of the turnip bulbs look like so far...about 30 days growth.
I'm still seeing some germination in odds and ends areas along the margins of the brassica strips where i some seed fly astray. that seed had to sat there for close to 30 days before germinating.
here is the waterhole i installed in spring of 2014. Still undecided on its usefullness....i have a cam set on it...but i rarely get pics of deer directly and obviously drinking from it or even standing in it. have plenty of pics of them standing along side of it and i do see tracks leading down into it from the uphill side. if anything i think its more of a location issue. i have a nice year round creek at the bottom of the hill...i'm not sure water is a very low hole in the bucket locally....but i figured if the deer are in the plot and water is there versus down the hill they would take advantage of it. I dont think its the liner....but who knows. All i know is that it isnt nearly the attention grabber i was hoping it would be.
I have two areas where the brassicas are spotty....not too much of a surprise to me...these areas were completely littered with junk from when this property was my grandfather's. he was quite the tinkerer/inventor so he lots of "inventory" that he left out here for when he might need it to make something. lots of metal, plastic, rubber, wood, a urinal, tires...you know sh!t you might need at a later date...lol. I soil tested this area separately from the rest of the plot. the thing that jumped out on the soil test results was very high zinc levels. Any way the turkey's found the bare dirt and turned it into a dusting pit. some of their dusting spots are 6-8" deep. I'm kinda nervous they will pick my september cereal/legume planting clean before it germs.
and i found this patch of purslane in the brassica planting.....never seen it in my plot before. I was gonna pick some for the salad bowl. Should i be worried enough about this stuff spreading uncontrollably and get on it ASAP....or not bother? i've read that it can spread rapidly and is a prolific seed producer.