Habitat out loud

[b116757]

I should of snapped a couple photos today we are clearing an old fence row and I’ve got dozens and dozens of persimmons coming up all over in an area at least a 1/4 acre I left a couple alone in the old fence row one is definitely a female she had little persimmons hurt’s my soul a little but I’ve got to remove at least 16’ wide strip of them down the new fence for contruction and access to spray. I will say persimmons are tough they shrug off my normal pasture Remedy Ultra/Milestone mix it defoliates them but they come right back actually it’s kind of handy I can spray an area and only the persimmons survive. I had cleared a connecting fence row and cleaned up a small pond dam in that area 2 years ago scarified the ground pretty good pretty much everywhere i scarified the ground is covered in little persimmon trees in that area now.

 

[SD51555]

Got both hoogs planted full, mulched, and proper fences built this weekend. I forgot to take a pic of my test hoog. It’s 2x8’s stacked for a wall. I screwed leftover blind studs to all four corners and wrapped it in 4’ of tenax fence.

This is the one you guys have seen.

It’s got beans, corn, peas, onions, cucumber, collards, romas, cherries, bell pepper, and jalapeño.

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[Wind Gypsy]

Good and bad.

Good: my 400 road screen spruces are putting on the boom finally.

Are those rip and relocate spruce? They look great!

 

[SD51555]

Are those rip and relocate spruce? They look great!

those I planted as plugs in 2016 from Itasca nursery. They floundered for a number of years until I got a riding lawn mower last season and started keeping the grass down. They likely lost 3 or more years due to being choked in the quack grass.

 

[SD51555]

Been doing a lot of work on human forage this spring at camp. This weekend, I finally built my super asparagus raised hoog bed. This one is called Hoog IV: The asparagus bed.

I put one polar cart load of chips down first, and then wood around the perimeter to keep the fabric in place.

There is roughly 6-8” of clear space for topsoil above all that wood, and plenty of pore space for the dirt to make it all the way to the existing soil line. This firewood is 3 year old aspen and poplar. It was extremely light and rotting well. Should make for an excellent sponge if i can hook enough rain to get it properly hydrated. This one also has some broken glass in it, a half of a steel fence post, and some rocks. As I was digging, I looked at those rocks as I found them, and I was thinking to myself, "Fill is fill." Those rocks are also generational fertilizer.

You can’t see it here, but as I was hauling topsoil over from my secret topsoil mine, I put a few feed shovel scoops of sawdust in each load to mix into the batches. I have about 5 yards of sawdust from my neighbors sawmill, so i wanted to put some of it to use. That dirt was already very good, I just wanted to push the carbon and organic material higher. I hope it’s not too much that it stifles the plants. If it is, I’ll punt and plant sweet clover this fall and then replant it next year.

32 plants. Thankfully, there was good moisture in all that dirt I brought over.

Mulched with hay. Not too deep, just enough to keep the sun off the soil until those plants get bigger. If/when they get taller, I’m going to add more hay.

Fence built, and plants watered.

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[SD51555]

Also put in my first apple tree in many years.

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[Kooch]

That’s going to be a heck of a lot of asparagus.


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[Foggy47]

Also put in my first apple tree in many years.

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Looks like you aged about 20 years since last weekend. Grin

 

[356]

That’s going to be a heck of a lot of asparagus.

We planted two 8x4 beds of Hugelkultur asparagus five years ago and that gives us enough for our needs, plus some to share. We blanch and freeze some, and dehydrate some for winter sauces and stews.

The hoogs look great. Thanks for sharing the journey.

 

[TenPoint]

Looks like you aged about 20 years since last weekend. Grin

Nobody said livin' off-grid was easy. ;)

 

[SD51555]

Nobody said livin' off-grid was easy. ;)

It was rough this weekend. I will count this past weekend as one where AC would have been nice. It was bad enough I bailed out early on Sunday. I hurried to get all my stuff done, then I bailed.

Positive note, it is peak power season. I was running everything on Saturday and still had tons of power to go around. Here’s a look at what I can generate this time of year close to solar noon.

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[Daydreamer]

It was rough this weekend. I will count this past weekend as one where AC would have been nice. It was bad enough I bailed out early on Sunday. I hurried to get all my stuff done, then I bailed.

Positive note, it is peak power season. I was running everything on Saturday and still had tons of power to go around. Here’s a look at what I can generate this time of year close to solar noon.

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The big question I have is how you get anything done with all the damn mosquitos this year up there??

 

[SD51555]

This is the test hoog. I built this one 4 years ago, and all others have been modeled off the learnings since. For some reason, hoog’ers insist on mounding theirs up high. I don’t understand that. It’s presented a ton of challenges keeping it hydrated. I also learned to leave myself 8” of soil with no wood so I can dig and place plants without hitting a chunk.

This one is just peas, beans, dill, cabbage, and broccoli. I did pitch some flax and collard seed on there after cover cropping the asparagus hoog. Good chance I’m gonna move it later this summer if the biggest dig ever happens.

It’s too close to my row of white pines, and I’m tired of weed whipping between them.

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[SD51555]

The big question I have is how you get anything done with all the damn mosquitos this year up there??

Yeah, I'm learning how to cope.

*Don't be outside at twilight times, that's when they're the worst.
*Don't leave the garage door open. If I open it, get it closed immediately.
*When they're really bad, I won't exit the cabin through the garage. I go out my direct door to the outside.

I've largely stayed out of the woods and just worked on stuff inside and around the yard. If I do venture out, it's midday, and I go on the wheeler and go fast. Yesterday I was doing some spraying around 11am on a section of plot I needed to reboot, and I gave up a pint of blood and pound of flesh to the biting flies it seems. But I got it all done. Don't know if it'll grow.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

The big question I have is how you get anything done with all the damn mosquitos this year up there??

That's no shit! I went to the family land by grand rapids over the holiday weekend and i couldn't walk fast enough with a bag seeder to avoid getting hammered by mosquitos.. Don't recall it ever being that bad before.

 

[TenPoint]

It was rough this weekend. I will count this past weekend as one where AC would have been nice. It was bad enough I bailed out early on Sunday. I hurried to get all my stuff done, then I bailed.

Positive note, it is peak power season. I was running everything on Saturday and still had tons of power to go around. Here’s a look at what I can generate this time of year close to solar noon.

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I couldn't do it w/o A/C. By 5pm Saturday I was feeling the heat exhaustion. Went and sat in the basement and felt rejuvenated after 20 minutes.

 

[SD51555]

If you look out into the rye, you can see patchy JD green. That’s my sweet clover punching up thru the rye. The good rye made about 3’ tall.

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[Foggy47]

 

[SD51555]

Apparently rye keep growing upward after it heads out. That was news to me. I picked up another foot of growth in the last week.

Last week I had 3’ rye with some 4’s. Now I’ve got 4’ rye with a bunch of 5’s.

The sweet clover is at 5’ and about to reach up over the rye.

The hairy Marvin stands out plain as day now.

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[omicron1792]

Apparently rye keep growing upward after it heads out. That was news to me. I picked up another foot of growth in the last week.

Last week I had 3’ rye with some 4’s. Now I’ve got 4’ rye with a bunch of 5’s.

The sweet clover is at 5’ and about to reach up over the rye.

The hairy Marvin stands out plain as day now.

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Love your threads SD. Looks great!