Habitat out loud

[SD51555]

I think a 5 foot fence would work fine, but you might end up with a little browsing on the edges when the deer stand up on their hind legs to reach some ROD. There's so much browse available on your place that I really don't think it will be a huge issue.

I also think you could get away with no fencing at all if you made 3 sided brushpiles in the winter and then just added the 4th side after planting the ROD in the spring. You might have some rabbit or mouse damage since they like to live in brushpiles, but I think it would be worth a shot at no cost to you other than time.

I think I'm getting to that point where I may be ahead of whatever deer are there. I ventured into my 2021 cut to look for tiny dogwood, and what was in there was all 4-7' tall already. When I cut that in 2021, there was no dogwood over 16" and what little there was, was kept browsed. What is really fun and frustrating at the same time is, it takes 2-3 years to really see if what you did 2-3 years ago is getting me ahead of the game. I never realized how much the dogwood came roaring back until I went looking for small stuff to yank. 2 years ago, I could walk all over and pull single stems that were 12-16" tall.

Judging by how the dogwood is booming back to prominence, it seems things are going the right way. Deer largely do not browse tag alder sprouts, but they do browse some. They hammer diamond willow sprouts pretty hard when they're close to a trail too. Throw in ash stump sprouts, and the deer can't keep up with all the browse that's coming. One of these years, I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and cut again, but not until those areas start losing their ground cover value.

 

[Foggy47]

SD....you've got competition on those raised beds.

 

[Skeeter]

SD, what seeding rate do you generally aim for with your japanese millet?

 

[SD51555]

SD, what seeding rate do you generally aim for with your japanese millet?

I’m always broadcasting into a mix, so I use around a quart to a half gallon per acre. I’m not sure what that is in pounds.


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[SD51555]

I think my spring barley is gonna be a major fail. Temps were perfect, it just never germinated. It was just dry and windy and it never got wet enough to pop open.

I’m shocked the turkeys didn’t get it. Next step will be a dose of Japanese millet if the clover doesn’t beat it to canopy.


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[SD51555]

Got the 5th garden built today.

Hoog V Build

Built another garden at camp today.

rumble.com

 

[Mortenson]

"What town?" "Any town."

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

What will you be planting in all of your gardens this year?

That’s a lot of work, but it will be pretty nice to have fresh veggies up there every time you come up.

 

[SD51555]

What will you be planting in all of your gardens this year?

That’s a lot of work, but it will be pretty nice to have fresh veggies up there every time you come up.

Standard stuff: beans, peas, tomatoes, corn, onions, peppers. Waiting to see if my garlic comes up this spring.


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[Jlane35]

Standard stuff: beans, peas, tomatoes, corn, onions, peppers. Waiting to see if my garlic comes up this spring.


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What variety garlic are you planting? I was doing Music Garlic and it was delicious. I just ran out of room in my garden and stopped planting it.

 

[SD51555]

What variety garlic are you planting? I was doing Music Garlic and it was delicious. I just ran out of room in my garden and stopped planting it.

I’ve got music as well. I planted 4 bulbs worth of cloves. Also planted about 60 cloves of MN hard neck I got from a local grower.


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[Tree Spud]

Got the 5th garden built today.

Hoog V Build

Built another garden at camp today.

rumble.com

Are you using hard or softwood?

How deep is the wood layer?

Do you do anything to help the wood decompose?

What other organic material do you add?

 

[SD51555]

Are you using hard or softwood?

How deep is the wood layer?

Do you do anything to help the wood decompose?

What other organic material do you add?

Glad you asked! I dissected my 2019 test hoog last summer when I moved it. I was stunned that the wood was still largely intact. It was a mix of dry oak, and 2 year old aspen firewood. Even the aspen was still too hard to break apart by hand. So I dialed back my hardness as far as I could.

I still use aspen wood, but I’m searching for the most rotten I can find. I’ve got one more to build this spring, and I want to use the softest of them all, tag alder. I kept a pile aside from last winter and will use that. I also go scavenging if I come up short. I happened to find all the wood for that one when cleaning up a spot where the lawn meets the woods. That stuff had been on the ground and cut into pieces for at least three years. I was dropping aspens to eliminate shade for my solar panels.

As far as other materials, you may have noticed scoops of brown coming off the shovel. I have about 3 yards of aspen sawdust I got from my neighbor’s sawmill. I would throw two silage forks of 2 year rotted sawdust in the bottom of each trailer load before I filled it with topsoil. That got mixed in fairly well.

I’m trying to drive the carbon sky high in these beds, but keep the pieces big to try to avoid the N drag. Then I top the beds with grindings from the pallet factory nearby. The first year on the new one is gonna have lots of green beans. I am going to alternate seeds corn/bean/corn/bean. I want the beans to climb up the corn. And I’m sticking onions and peppers in there too. The one I built with subsoil and only 6” of topsoil didn’t price squat when it came to onions, corn, and peppers. It grew peas, beans, dill, and tomatoes really well.


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[SD51555]

There’s no subsoil is the lumber lined beds, and the first one thrived right away. From here, I just want to keep adding an inch or two of wood chip grindings each year as they rot down. Those grindings do rot a lot in two years.


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[Tree Spud]

Glad you asked! I dissected my 2019 test hoog last summer when I moved it. I was stunned that the wood was still largely intact. It was a mix of dry oak, and 2 year old aspen firewood. Even the aspen was still too hard to break apart by hand. So I dialed back my hardness as far as I could.

I still use aspen wood, but I’m searching for the most rotten I can find. I’ve got one more to build this spring, and I want to use the softest of them all, tag alder. I kept a pile aside from last winter and will use that. I also go scavenging if I come up short. I happened to find all the wood for that one when cleaning up a spot where the lawn meets the woods. That stuff had been on the ground and cut into pieces for at least three years. I was dropping aspens to eliminate shade for my solar panels.

As far as other materials, you may have noticed scoops of brown coming off the shovel. I have about 3 yards of aspen sawdust I got from my neighbor’s sawmill. I would throw two silage forks of 2 year rotted sawdust in the bottom of each trailer load before I filled it with topsoil. That got mixed in fairly well.

I’m trying to drive the carbon sky high in these beds, but keep the pieces big to try to avoid the N drag. Then I top the beds with grindings from the pallet factory nearby. The first year on the new one is gonna have lots of green beans. I am going to alternate seeds corn/bean/corn/bean. I want the beans to climb up the corn. And I’m sticking onions and peppers in there too. The one I built with subsoil and only 6” of topsoil didn’t price squat when it came to onions, corn, and peppers. It grew peas, beans, dill, and tomatoes really well.


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That's what I suspected that hardwood species would have long breakdown times. I have some siberian elm on the property that might be a good choice. It is a soft wood and generally breaks down readily.

I have read that wood will suck up much of the nitrogen in the bed, how do you balance out the nitrogen for crop growth?

 

[Telemark]

Birch breaks down faster than anything else I've seen. Might be good if you have some around.

I like splitting logs into quarters for hoog beds. Bark is designed to protect the wood, so increasing the surface area of the bare wood accelerates decomposition. But yeah, it takes a long time for the logs to break down. It might go faster if you inoculate with a saprophytic fungus like king stropharia.

 

[Tree Spud]

Birch breaks down faster than anything else I've seen. Might be good if you have some around.

I like splitting logs into quarters for hoog beds. Bark is designed to protect the wood, so increasing the surface area of the bare wood accelerates decomposition. But yeah, it takes a long time for the logs to break down. It might go faster if you inoculate with a saprophytic fungus like king stropharia.

I have some fallen birch also, I will look into reclaiming some of that.

So I should remove the bark?

 

[Barndog56]

Did you find lots of earthworms when you tore apart your hoog?

 

[Foggy47]

I have some fallen birch also, I will look into reclaiming some of that.

So I should remove the bark?

Your sure right about the Birch. If birch is wet for any period of time....it deteriorates very quickly. I really like to burn some birch with oak in my outdoor fireplace......so I covet the birch trees that tip over. When a birch tree tips over.....if I don't get it cut up within a year or so....it's all punky and no good to burn. Once it's cut up and split and stacked.....it seems to last pretty well. I wonder if leaving the bark on may help the rate of decay? Certainly any contact with the ground helps decay that birch.

 

[Tree Spud]

Your sure right about the Birch. If birch is wet for any period of time....it deteriorates very quickly. I really like to burn some birch with oak in my outdoor fireplace......so I covet the birch trees that tip over. When a birch tree tips over.....if I don't get it cut up within a year or so....it's all punky and no good to burn. Once it's cut up and split and stacked.....it seems to last pretty well. I wonder if leaving the bark on may help the rate of decay? Certainly any contact with the ground helps decay that birch.

I love burning birch also.