What are you planting? ... Spring 2022

[4wanderingeyes]

I was in town today looking all over for a pickaroon. Eventually I was forced to look at Menards. No pickaroon there either, but they did have some trees out. I glanced at a few apple tags and the ones I saw were $40. Also checked out some of their conifers. 2 gallon conifers were $24.99. Most of them looked pretty ratty. The ones from NRCS look twice as good and only cost $15.



Thinking I need to delay some nursery shipments by one week. Still plenty of snow in my ground and was gonna have most shipped on April 18th. Probably a week too early.

I have the 28" Fiskars. It only weighs about 2 pounds, it is easily my favorite tool when I am cutting wood. I also have a wood handled 36", it is heavy, and to long. I am 6'1, and I was afraid the 28" Fiskars would be too short, but I prefer it way more then the heavy one.

I ordered mine from ebay for like $50


I have all of my trees coming the week of the 25th-29th, and unless this rain, or if we can get some warmer temps, I may need to delay my shipments as well.

 

[BuckSutherland]

I have a 31" coming from Amazon.... I've used something similar and liked it. The area in the picture below has all kinds of basswood and aspen trees that we dropped about 10 years ago. They are just getting to the stage they will make some great mulch on my weed mats. I plan to cut apart the downfall this spring and use it as cover on weed mats. I'm pretty certain the pickaroon will come in handy to move some stuff around. Gotta a few more small pockets to cut, pile and burn as well. Perfect for that.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I have gotten to the point, I need to cut down more trees, so I can plant more trees. I have a bunch on order, and I dont have room for them.

I have started planting cuttings in low land, which I have planned that all out, but now that I walked around to where I was planning on planting a bunch of bare root, and potted trees, I realize I dont have as much open spaces as I thought I did when I ordered.

This past weekend I was pointing out to my wife all the big trees I need to cut down, so I can plant a bunch of small trees, and I needed to cut all the fabric, and fence them all so they can have a chance to get big. Of course her comment was, why not just leave the big trees, they are already there.

Woman, they just dont understand!

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I have gotten to the point, I need to cut down more trees, so I can plant more trees. I have a bunch on order, and I dont have room for them.

I have started planting cuttings in low land, which I have planned that all out, but now that I walked around to where I was planning on planting a bunch of bare root, and potted trees, I realize I dont have as much open spaces as I thought I did when I ordered.

This past weekend I was pointing out to my wife all the big trees I need to cut down, so I can plant a bunch of small trees, and I needed to cut all the fabric, and fence them all so they can have a chance to get big. Of course her comment was, why not just leave the big trees, they are already there.

Woman, they just dont understand!

My wife was a fan of all the mature timber on our land. I've had probably 6 day trips dedicated to chainsaw time since she was last out there. I'm guessing she wont like the new aesthetics

"Honey, by having multiple stages of successional habitat on our property we're creating better conditions for a wide variety of flora and fauna down to the insects"

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I have about a 100' strip of woods between my yard, and the road, and it is a little bare in one section and you can see through that part. So one day I took the chain saw to a bunch of mature trees, and my wife asked me, what the hell are you doing, I thought we wanted it thicker, not to thin it out. When I explained that the tall trees needed to be cut down, so small trees can grow, I got the deer in headlights look.

 

[bigboreblr]

MY wife doesnt mind the chainsaw, she gets a campfire from it........

She loves when I spend hundreds of dollars if not thousands on fertilizer to grow weeds. Old farm equipment, then tools to fix it....... Told her Im pretty sure Id have as much fun with that money at the bar............

She atleast gets to see the bunnies play around in yard more.......

Looked at green cover's website. I applied for that Milpa farm grant. Free seed as long as you donate 1/2 of it. See if they give it to me or not. Got a 1/2 acre I can play with. I rotate where I harvest a deer. Got one in my house in 2021, so no big rush to put more plots in there right now. Got 25 wild apple bareroots coming.

 

[sandbur]

I have about a 100' strip of woods between my yard, and the road, and it is a little bare in one section and you can see through that part. So one day I took the chain saw to a bunch of mature trees, and my wife asked me, what the hell are you doing, I thought we wanted it thicker, not to thin it out. When I explained that the tall trees needed to be cut down, so small trees can grow, I got the deer in headlights look.

We have a strip between our yard and a driveway to some other buildings on the farm. My wife wants it all cleaned out, so I am cutting the small stuff. It is/was full of box elder and other junk. I am trying to save an old lilac buried in there.

As far as planting this spring, I have 3 crabs in pots to plant and about 5 or 6 to transplant. I have been pulling cages off of older trees so I don’t have to spend money on more fencing.

I will also move a few small volunteer spruce. I suppose someone will just dig them up again like they did two falls back. Those will be on my absentee property.


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[BuckSutherland]

I got all of my cages made for this spring (70). I was up at my land for a bit Tuesday and Wed. I had to sled them around the woods. We have too much snow yet.


To cut up my rolls I use: a 10' ruler, and an irwin snips. It took me on average about 25-27 mins cut up 100 foot roll into 10 cages and get them all formed in 6-12" of snow. I could probably make 10 cages in closer to 20 mins if I was standing in a bare field. The snow made it difficult to move.

 

[b116757]

Got the last 100 oaks in the ground and tubed that I ordered for this year. Weed mats tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

 

[BuckSutherland]

Good friends of mine recently moved to the country. Their 10 acre parcel used to be a cattle pasture. Most of the property was fenced with 4 or 5 strands of barb wire. He wants it gone, and I want the T post for planting my trees up north. I'm taking the fence down for him and getting the post in return. I spent about 8 hours rolling wire up by hand. I probably have about 60 post already. 25 of them are already delivered to my woods 200 miles away. Got a bunch more to pull yet. I will end up with over 200 post if I do the entire fence. Sounds like he might wanna leave his western line. Pretty good deal for both of us. I didnt mind taking it down at all. Very peaceful out there.

 

[Tree Spud]

Got my first 50 apple trees in the ground and caged this past weekend. Still have another 26 top go. Received my 100 Black Spruce & 100 Blue Spruce from Cold stream farm to plant this weekend.

Really helps to have the right tools when planting. This powered auger on the back of my tractor

Always very pleased with the stock from Whitetail Crabs & Blue Hills. Crossbow is on the left and Big Lou on the right.






Pruning continues as we still have not seen buds breaking. Love this tool to reach the taller branches.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Got my first 50 apple trees in the ground and caged this past weekend. Still have another 26 top go. Received my 100 Black Spruce & 100 Blue Spruce from Cold stream farm to plant this weekend.

Really helps to have the right tools when planting. This powered auger on the back of my tractor

Always very pleased with the stock from Whitetail Crabs & Blue Hills. Crossbow is on the left and Big Lou on the right.

View attachment 42455


Pruning continues as we still have not seen buds breaking. Love this tool to reach the taller branches.

View attachment 42456

Who is your helper in the last pic?

bill

 

[Tree Spud]

Who is your helper in the last pic?

bill

That is Thor my partner in crime for past 11.5 years on the farm. Wife hates when he has been out finding his muddy dikes & creeks. Boys will be boys

 

[BuckSutherland]

I picked up some of my trees yesterday from the Meeker SWCD...


12- 1 gallon red pine (they look nice)
12- 2 gallon white cedar (quite a bit smaller then last year)
5- 2 gallon Austrian pine (my first time planting any of these)
8- 2 gallon white pine (about 34-44" tall for $15)
25- red splendor crabapple (bareroots)- I have these wrapped in moist news paper surrounded by peat moss in a 5 gallon pail.


Still 4-6 of snow on the ground in my woods.

 

[BuckSutherland]

They had a really good looking selection again this year. The $10 scotch pine were HUGE trees. Someone got great value out of those suckers. I stopped at Menards the other day to look at their trees and I thought most of them were complete shit for 2-3x the money. The SWCD sale blows all others out of the water.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Those look nice! My trees are suppose to start coming in this week. I don’t hardly have any snow in the woods anymore, so I am hoping I can get some planted during the week, and finish the rest this weekend, when my son comes up for the weekend.

 

[BuckSutherland]

Here is how I'm storing my crab apple bare roots. I wrapped the bundle with a bunch of newspaper and then zip tied it shut. Then I filled the pail with peat moss and poured water in there until it felt a little moist.


I have big roofing job down the road from my land this week. I'm gonna bring a few trees with me and hope to sneak them in by Thursday eveing. I expect I wont get much planted though. Hopefully the snow is gone and I can at least do all the ground clearing with my silky saw so the weed mats lay flat. I have just a few spots where the snow has been gone for a few weeks on some hills and I wanna sneak some of those crabs into those spots.

 

[iceman10]

Planted Norway spruce & apple trees today . Tomorrow is peach & cherry trees . Hopefully I get them in before the big rain we are supposed to get . I have , dogwood, crabapple, persimmon & redbuds to grow all summer for fall tree tubes . Good luck everyone


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[bwoods11]

100 trees going in Iowa next weekend. Cage, weed mat, tubes (already there).. I hope the weather cooperates!

 

[BuckSutherland]

Where did you get the trees from Bwoods? Itasca?? Are those Austrian pines or Scotch pine?? They almost look like my Austrians with those white clusters.... And the spruce look like Norways?? Then maybe some crabapple and some swamp burr oak hybrid.....