This is going to be a lot of work...
As always though, it is nice to have help. For a while now, we have been using animals to clear the land for us. Basically, we open up a portion of the raw land overrun with briers and thorns for the animals to work on. After a while, they eat it back to raw soil. At that point, we cover it with mulch to suppress those plants from regrowing. Here are a few short videos about it.
WORKING SMARTER NOT HARDER WITH ANIMALS - VIDEO 1
WORKING SMARTER NOT HARDER WITH ANIMALS - VIDEO 2
In that second video, you could see our hogs and the goats we borrowed from @bluerthangreen & @allforthegood beginning to work on a new section of the property. Here is what that portion looked like the other day.
I know that it may look like we have destroyed part of the earth by doing this. Hold on, I can explain!
Basically, to have a bunch of Poison Ivy and Green Brier on a section of land doesn't really help us. Neither do non-edible shrubberies. Our goal is not to get rid of the plants or forest on our land, but rather to replace the existing one with one that we prefer.
We would prefer to have a mixture of food-bearing plants and medicinal herbs growing on our property. If we can grow a lot of our own food supply and also have enough to share, swap, or sell to others, this will be far preferable for us.
Since @bluerthangreen has a dump trailer that I can borrow, and since we can get free mulch nearby, I took down part of the fence so that I could dump this load where I wanted it. The mulch will cover the soil for now, and eventually build it up. It'll prevent weed growth and retain moisture, and in time, we will begin to plant a mixture of annual and perennial food plants.
This is what another part of the land looks like right now, where we planted some peppers to put the soil to use for the time being. They have grown very well there so far, and we can't wait to get more growing next year. In case you're wondering, these happen to Ghost Peppers, one of my personal favorites!
Once the trailer is in place, getting the mulch out is no problem. With a simple push of a button, it unloads itself!
Sure, I have to spread it around a bit, but I like a bit of hard work. Actually, I am currently in the best shape of my adult life right now, thanks to all of the hard work I am putting in on our land!
After I got it spread, I evaluated the situation. I'll need another load for this portion, but all of the old plants should now be removed. We will use the space for annual crops until we are ready to sculpt the land with swales and such to help control runoff and retain water from rainfall. When we combine some shaping of the land with soil-building and mulching, we should be able to water our plants less and have them stay moist for longer.
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-progress
Until next time…
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