I consider my place - on a scale of 1 - 10 - with ten being easiest to work - about a 3. I have an acquantance who had a farm is SE GA - who I envied for the ease it worked. Soil had a lot of sand - one pass with any tillage equipment and would have been ready to plant sod on. Ground was workable the next day after a two inch rain. Close enough to coast where there were regular rain showers, but rarely a flood. Rarely a crop failure
I lose an average of 50% of my planting due mainly to drought, flood, or animals. I have learned not to plant a tree if I cant get running water to it. I once had 15,000 loblolly pines planted and they died in a drought that summer. I had it replanted the following year and it flooded and drowned all the trees three years later. I planted a 20 acre upland pasture with loblolly and every pine was dead in two years - largely due to drought. I have ten or so fruit trees of age to produce - and over the last five or six years - have never got a mature fruit off any of them. Disease or coons have got it all. In the late summer or early fall, I can often drag an 1800 lb, 7 ft wide disk across the ground and not see any disturbed dirt. From Jan through June, I may not be able to get a tractor out of the yard it is so wet. About 75% of the time, a late frost gets the peach and pear bloom. Six months out of the year, a polaris ranger makes ruts six inches deep in the trail.
And I have learned what I can and cant plant. I cant plant brassicas - too hot and dry. I cant plant beans, peas, corn, milo, or sunflowers. The coons, deer, and hogs will ruin it at some point - or floods or drought will get it. I have 15 adjacent land owners - many of them small acreage, with a corn feeder stationed near my property line.
In spite of all that, we have decent deer hunting, some duck, hog, squirrel, turkey, and alligator hunting - all on my property. Also some fishing. After reading a few of the posts on this forum, I wonder if some of these folks realize how easy they have it. I also read some posts on here where it stays so cold so long, they have a very short growing season. Blizzards, bears, and wolves all compound matters for them. Over hunting by neighbors makes deer management difficult.
So, how easy - or challenging - is your property to work?
I lose an average of 50% of my planting due mainly to drought, flood, or animals. I have learned not to plant a tree if I cant get running water to it. I once had 15,000 loblolly pines planted and they died in a drought that summer. I had it replanted the following year and it flooded and drowned all the trees three years later. I planted a 20 acre upland pasture with loblolly and every pine was dead in two years - largely due to drought. I have ten or so fruit trees of age to produce - and over the last five or six years - have never got a mature fruit off any of them. Disease or coons have got it all. In the late summer or early fall, I can often drag an 1800 lb, 7 ft wide disk across the ground and not see any disturbed dirt. From Jan through June, I may not be able to get a tractor out of the yard it is so wet. About 75% of the time, a late frost gets the peach and pear bloom. Six months out of the year, a polaris ranger makes ruts six inches deep in the trail.
And I have learned what I can and cant plant. I cant plant brassicas - too hot and dry. I cant plant beans, peas, corn, milo, or sunflowers. The coons, deer, and hogs will ruin it at some point - or floods or drought will get it. I have 15 adjacent land owners - many of them small acreage, with a corn feeder stationed near my property line.
In spite of all that, we have decent deer hunting, some duck, hog, squirrel, turkey, and alligator hunting - all on my property. Also some fishing. After reading a few of the posts on this forum, I wonder if some of these folks realize how easy they have it. I also read some posts on here where it stays so cold so long, they have a very short growing season. Blizzards, bears, and wolves all compound matters for them. Over hunting by neighbors makes deer management difficult.
So, how easy - or challenging - is your property to work?
