My weekend project...

[AtticaFish]

Last fall i was approached by the landowner who owns a 2 acre piece of the farm field that butts my property to the South.... said that he was planning to sell it off. Not in one piece - or two - but split into THREE LOTS!!!! Long story short, i went to the bank the next day! Managed to get an equity loan (there goes my hopes of a garage) and i bought the whole 2 acres.... i currently don't have (or want) ANY neighbors. Here is looking from the back corner of my new property... the line runs from the stake to behind my house and towards the right out to the road.

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Ordered a few bare-root trees from my local Soil & Water Conservation district to make a wind break and screen in case he decides to sell off more land. They came in today!!!



Have it all planned out where they are going to go.... looks like it will be a long (painful) weekend. Weather should be fun as well - highs in the 50's and rain most of the weekend. :-/ Took half the day off and managed to get 15 in before supper, kids bath time and homework and all that....... only 120 more to plant!!! :beat-up: :sleepy:

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[Ron Don]

120 more! EWWE! I hate shovels. Well when you get done with those holes you need to dig a 1 acre hole! You can test out those new creations right there in the back yard!

P.S. Dont work too hard. But it will be great in the end.

 

[hhawkins]

Hey Attica, you know when your done....I've got 3 or 4 beds I need put together for my grapes, blackberries and blueberries..LOL!

 

[Uncle Grump]

I remember those days - one year we (wifelet & I) had almost 300 trees to put in on our ground.....

Back many moons ago, when I was in high school, we had a extra-curicular group called the "Conservation Club" - we used to hire out to area landowners, planted 1000's of trees, did trash pick-ups along the roads etc.

If I can offer a couple suggestions - mulch those trees - wood chips, plastic, anything you can do to keep the weeds away from them - to give them the best shot at the water, etc. Also - think about how big they will get over time - what seems like a huge distance between them now will shrink over time.

Good luck

UG

 

[ScottV]

You better get a big lawn mower too. LOL That would have been a little crowded having three more houses there. Good move.

 

[AtticaFish]

RD - In my 'master plan' i drew up... i left a rather large empty area in the middle where no trees will be planted. No clue how long it will be before i can save back up enough $$$ to hire a man with excavator though. ha!

Heather - Once i am done with the trees... then on to the garden and i am behind schedule with that already. I did rip out my carrot and radish raised beds already though... gave up on them and planted strawberries.

UG - I am (sorta) mulching them as i go with the left-over wheat laying in the field from last year, they just harvested it and never bailed it. I might have to get something better though... never planted in a wide open field like this. Wish you would have told me about spacing them - about 10 years ago. I figured that one out already when some of the trees i planted on the edge of my original property started growing out over the farmers field. Ooops. I own the field now though! Am using a 10' 1x4 for spacing the Aus. Pines and a 6' 1x4 Arborvate (sp?)

Worst part is that the ground is solid red clay! I am mixing peat in with the clay for each tree. So far, wife has been digging and i have been mixing dirt and planting.

Scott - I have a rider..... but it is no where near big enough!!!!

 

[moswampy]

with two acres a fella could make some $$$$ running a truck farm. Even putting in 1 acre of sweet corn could bring in some cash money to supplement fishing expenditures

 

[AtticaFish]

What a crummy weekend to plant. :dodgy: Ended up temporarly (sp?) 'heeling in' the rest of the trees into my garden since most of the week looks like rain. Never tried this method before and am hoping it will give me some extra time since these are all bareroot. I am 1/3rd of the way done and learning i am getting to old for this stuff. My body had other plans than to actually get OUT of bed this morning.

Either way - i have to get them in the ground ASAP..... month of May does not have a letter 'R' in it!!!!!!

 

[Hawnjigs]

Hire some nephews to help with the digging ?

Whats that forest line down the road a ways?

 

[toadfrog]

Rent a gas powered post hole digger . Cheaper than nephews be done in 4 hrs and on the way to the fishing hole . Rent on a weekend like Saturday evening you don't bring it back until Monday morning around 50 bucks last I knew.

 

[AtticaFish]

I tried to wave some cash under the nose of my 16 year old nephew... no luck! Too busy with track & field and just living the 16 year old life i guess. :-/

Will have to check into the post hole digger and see if they have one with a big enough diamater - thats a good idea! Have been digging pretty wide holes, about 10" to 12" in diamater so i can fill it back in with a mix of decent soil.

HJ - The trees down the road are actually 3 different small wooded areas, it is somewhat of an optical illusion. My county is very much an agricultural area with no 'old growth' forrest at all. It is pretty comical to look at the area from satelite images... nearly every thing is divided up with the roads running nearly true north/south & east/west.... it looks like a big patchwork quilt of 1 mile square fields with smaller squares of trees here and there with small man made waterways/ditches to drain the fields. Even most of the local upground reservoirs are perfectly square and one is perfectly round. Whoever layed out the overall scheme for seneca county had to be geometricaly anal!?!?!?!

 

[Uncle Grump]

Sounds like where I live in SE MN - except very few reservoirs.

UG