Someday Isle - Property tour

[Someday isle]

Heat index of 116 earlier this week. It’s been brutal for two weeks around the whole Midwest. Today is was in the low sixties at 7:00 a.m. I had lots of stuff to do today and both time and good weather so I went to work.

First on the list was watering my pear trees. I put ten trees in on St. Patrick’s Day. If you recall they were already leafed out when I got them. I lost one to frost. One was pretty sickly looking when I got it and it didn’t survive the heat. I have one other one not doing well. Two of them though are over six feet tall right now and the others seem to be healthy enough. Hopefully they survive the summer heat and their first winter. They all got five gallons of water today.

 

[Someday isle]

Next was mowing my campground. It’s not a habitat thing really but it’s nice having a clean looking spot. I try to keep it presentable even though it’s really just a parking spot and archery range. It does have a fire pit though and I keep plenty of firewood around.

 

[Someday isle]

My new quarter acre plot was seeded in buckwheat for a first crop. It’s been nothing short of impressive. The buckwheat has grown like crazy, kept the weeds out of the plot (except for stump sprouts), and the deer seem to at least nibble on it from time to time. The seed is starting to harden so I’ll overseed it next week if time allows and then mow the first crop down in top of the seed. Hopefully I’ll get enough to grow again to cover the ground for a month or so while I plan my fall plots. I just want to make sure to keep it from going to seed again. I may decide to mow it a couple weeks prior to Labor Day to let it start to decompose. But with a sample size of one I’m pretty impressed with buckwheat. That’s an earthway spreader just for size reference.

 

[Someday isle]

Keeping with the Buckwheat theme. The new plot that we expanded last year was just overgrown with weeds. There was stilll some red clover in there too but the weeds had really taken over in the heat. As an experiment I just spread 12 pounds of buckwheat over the quarter acre plot (so about 50 lbs an acre). Then I mowed the weeds and clover down on top of the new seed. If it grows, great. If not, that’s okay too. Without much rain in the forecast and high temps coming back the weeds might just take over again but I’ll deal with that as fall approaches. This is also the spot where I have five surviving pear trees and I thought maybe the tall weeds were robbing a little moisture.

It’s interesting to me that the area that started as a logging road food plot two years ago had very little weeds and the clover was growing stronger. In the area that was wooded ground that we cleared in an expansion effort last fall wa s the really weedy spot. I’m sure it’s a combination of seed bank, lack of soil amendments equal to the original area and then heat and drought like conditions. It was an obvious difference to me though. In my newly cleared area from this year the buckwheat that I planted kept the weeds at bay much better. I’m sold on buckwheat as a cover crop in the new plot areas for at least the next year or two. Here’s a picture of the area after mowing today.

 

[Bill]

Looks like scorched earth around the fruit trees. Has the buckwheat been holding its own in the heat and drought?

 

[Someday isle]

Looks like scorched earth around the fruit trees. Has the buckwheat been holding its own in the heat and drought?

Yeah Bill, it’s just been so hot and dry again this summer. That wet spring seems so long ago now. The buckwheat has really impressed me. It’s still going strong. It’s setting hard seed now though it’s time to try and get the second crop started. I doubt it’ll do very well the second time around without any rain but maybe we can sneak in a good shower or two in the next couple of weeks. I figure it’ll be what it is for the next month anyway. Can’t comtrol the weather.

 

[Someday isle]

Heat indexes in the 100s again this week. My buckwheat went from thriving and setting hard seed to brown and burned up in a week. I spread a little more buckwheat in the plots and then mowed the old buckwheat on top of it. Now we’re just hoping for rain. We’ve got storms in the area tonight so maybe a little rain will fall. Heat index of 114 with an actual temp of 105 today. The northern part of the state has had it even worse. They look to have gotten some rain tonight in some areas. We’re Also supposed to be a little cooler the next week.

I sprayed my clover trails with sethoxidym and Butyrac 200 24DB yesterday too. The clover is a little stressed right now so hopefully it’ll be okay but the weeds were taking over. It’s my first time spraying these two trails so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Today my brother went out with me and we watered the pear trees again. I’ve been taking five gallon per tree out each week in this dry spell but I tried something new today. I bought some Home Depot five gallon buckets, drilled two holes in the bottom and zip tied them to the inside of the cage. We then poured the five gallon buckets into the other buckets. It’s seems to have worked perfectly. The water eased onto the weed mat and seeped right into the hole where the tree tube comes out.

Then we went around with a steel garden rake and I raked open a couple mock scrapes and a couple that the deer made themselves last year. One of them was a mock scrape I made last summer that the deer took over in September. Hopefully these will work out too.

The last thing we did was tear out an old rotten feeder and a very dangerous elevated shooting house that looked to have been there for years before I owned the property. It’s nice to be rid of them. I was always afraid someone would climb into that old stand and fall right through.

 

[Someday isle]

That brown plot where the old stand used to be was green buckwheat a week ago. This heat and drought has been something again this year. We just had a storm roll through home. We didn’t get much rain but the temperature dropped from 95 to 75 in a matter of a half hour. According to radar our property is getting a similar storm right now. A Little rain is better than nothing at this point.

 

[Bill]

Neighbor said we got 3/4" last night and I actually got cam pics of it raining. Looks like my curled beans bounced back a bit today. I'll take it, Like you say something is better than nothing. Just need the heat to back off a tad. Just a tad! Pleeeeease...

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Someday - We plant buckwheat at camp every year. IMO, your plot looks to be a little thin - maybe seed it heavier next time around. We do 50lbs. to 1/2 acre at minimum. Thicker BW keeps weeds even more at bay, plus the additional cover of BW leaves seems to keep the soil a little more moist. And you get more OM to decay into the ground. In our location, deer just love BW. ( For some reason - bucks seem to hit it harder than does. We have pix of 8 nice - racked bucks in it eating at one time ). Maybe there's something in the BW that bucks like or need ?? I have no idea.

I did the bucket trick with (3), 1/16" holes in the bottom to slowly drip water onto our trees when planted. It works great doesn't it ?? No wasted water - it all soaks in and doesn't run off. It's a really good way to get newly planted trees off to a good start, or for in a hot, dry spell.

Nice job on all fronts !!

 

[Someday isle]

After a self,imposed two week hiatus I went out to The Island to water my pear trees and pull camera cards.

Out of ten initial trees I have two really doing well. One is over 8 feet tall and the other is not far behind. Three others look pretty good, two are dead, and three are really struggling. Between a couple late hard frosts and then all this heat and drought I think the weaker trees have just been really stressed. At this point Im hopeful that five will survive their first year.

I mowed and overseeded my buckwheat plots a couple weeks ago. There’s some new growth but not much. Although we’re getting a little storm out there today there just hasn’t been enough moisture. The northern part of the state has had a little rain but it seems to be missing us down here all the time. We’re definietly in an extended drought pattern that minus a little wet spell this spring is now going all the way back to last summer.

Not too many pics on our cameras this time around. I have three small bucks, a couple does and a doe and fawn as regulars but that’s about it right now. I do have a couple turkey pictures which is kind of a rarity for us but I also found a couple turkey feathers too so hopefully we are starting to draw a few birds. The deer do seem to like buckwheat.

 

[Bill]

Finally got a little rain yesterday up north after about 20 days of relentless heat....
All the thunderstorms seem to be missing our area.

 

[Someday isle]

Fruit tree update. I started with ten bareroot pear trees. The two dead ones are still dead. Three more are really struggling. These five are doing okay though.

 

[Someday isle]

It’s interesting that one is nine feet tall and another is barely four feet. For reference they’re five foot tree tubes. If the other three survive it’ll be eight out of ten but I’m still hopeful that five make it to their second year. Between a couple late hard frosts and all this heat and drought we’re lucky anything is growing.

What little rain we had last week did next to nothing to help out. The ground is so baked and dusty. I was a buckwheat genius with my first crop this year. My second crop hasn’t done much of anything. Seeds and new plants just need water.

I ordered my cereal grains, peas and clover today from the local grain elevator. I’ll pick it up next Wednesday. My wife is having some shoulder surgery next Friday but hopefully she’ll do well enough that I can get some planting done the weekend of Labor Day. Last year was such a dust bowl through August and September here in Missouri. Hopefully we get some rain this week as forecast and then a little moisture Over the next three weeks. Last year I planted and hoped for rain. I’m debating prepping the ground and then just waiting for a strong chance of rain before putting seed down. I plan to lime this weekend and fertilize next week no matter what but I might wait for rain to seed. Any suggestions?

 

[Native Hunter]

It’s interesting that one is nine feet tall and another is barely four feet. For reference they’re five foot tree tubes. If the other three survive it’ll be eight out of ten but I’m still hopeful that five make it to their second year. Between a couple late hard frosts and all this heat and drought we’re lucky anything is growing.

What little rain we had last week did next to nothing to help out. The ground is so baked and dusty. I was a buckwheat genius with my first crop this year. My second crop hasn’t done much of anything. Seeds and new plants just need water.

I ordered my cereal grains, peas and clover today from the local grain elevator. I’ll pick it up next Wednesday. My wife is having some shoulder surgery next Friday but hopefully she’ll do well enough that I can get some planting done the weekend of Labor Day. Last year was such a dust bowl through August and September here in Missouri. Hopefully we get some rain this week as forecast and then a little moisture Over the next three weeks. Last year I planted and hoped for rain. I’m debating prepping the ground and then just waiting for a strong chance of rain before putting seed down. I plan to lime this weekend and fertilize next week no matter what but I might wait for rain to seed. Any suggestions?

I think it would be good to wait for a good rain forecast. It's still early and no need to be in a hurry.

PS: I hope all goes well with your wife's surgery.

 

[H20fwler]

Good luck to the wife, hope all goes well.

 

[Someday isle]

I got some more work done this weekend. Yesterday I finished hunting a bunch of trees to open up one of my food plot trails to some more light. I’d call it a success.

 

[Someday isle]

We also had a strange sighting at our place this week. We got rain for about four hours on Monday. This might be the first mud of the summer.

 

[Someday isle]

In that previous picture you can see how last year’s clover is really struggling in this heat but there’s at least something there. Habitat season for me is about over. My second buckwheat crop was pretty much a failure with the high heat and drought and the weeds have taken over two of my plot areas. I’ll spray them next week. My wife’s surgery is Friday next week so I’ll obviously be home with her all weekend. After she’s able to go back to work it’ll be time to seed the food plots if the weather cooperates. Then I’m done for the season and will wait for hunting opportunities. We’ve had very few pictures of deer in comparison to last year but there’s time for that to change. Hopefully things pick up this fall. I’m excited to get hunting season started. September 15th for us but it’ll be the last week of September at the earliest for me this year I think.

 

[Bill]

For the summer we've had your clover looks bad yes, but it's still there! Hopefully the dormant root system is holding on and bounces back when the rains come. Farm logs doesn't show any rain in the past 2 days at my place but I had a small puddle on a trail cam yesterday. Hopefully a pop up shower helped a bit. Fingers crossed on 90% chance Monday.