Re-wilding

[Tubetec]

I decided to allow the grass grow uncut this season , its at least 18 inches off the ground all around the property at this stage .
While it looks great there are a few downsides allowing nature come to close ,
Both my dogs are out the back in under growth with a badger cornered ,
the woofing, fighting and howling hasnt stopped in an hour ,
The dogs wont respond to my call , I cant get into where they are to flush them out with a stick , even if I could I only risk escalating things further ,

Finally the standoff ended , dogs are fine ,badger got away ok too .

 

[fazer]

I’m glad all the animals are safe. What kind of dogs do you have?

Must be nice having the rainfall to grow tall grass and not worry about wildfires. Colorado is a dry state. I live in the country and it’s been dry with wind. Combo for wildfires. I dream of a wet summer but it’s drought here. Maybe. Later in the season we’ll get some heavy rainfall.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Lately I have stretched out the interval between mowing my lawn from every week. I am going on almost three weeks right now, but high temperatures and low rainfall has hindered growth. The grass that hasn't turned brown, has gone to seed so I could mow if so inclined.
===
If I didn't cut my grass regularly the yard would turn into a new growth forest with hedges and trees. My far back yard that I didn't keep trimmed for a couple decades grew some huge ass trees. I am just now getting most of those trees cleared off. I actually had to pay my tree guy to drop the last two trees that were too big for me to steer down safely. He used his tractor to push them down exactly where we wanted them to fall. I combined that job with him stump grinding about 15 stumps left from years of my amateur tree cutting.

JR

PS: My obsessive/compulsive neighbor complained that I didn't mow my rain ditch often enough to prevent flooding (he is upstream from me.) One day last week he dragged his mower into my yard to mow my rain ditch. He is clearly wrong about the effectiveness of my water runoff ditch management, and a little psycho. I couldn't decide whether i should tell him to get the F___ out of my yard, or say thank you. I said nothing, he has a very short fuse.

 

[Tubetec]

My dogs are the typical small farmyard dog here , terrier/jack russell cross ,around 15 kg each , there bascially rared as indoor dogs but it doesnt take much and they go back into their natural element , the jungle in the undergrowth .
the badger here is a little smaller maybe 12kg , he's nowhere near as fast across open ground as the dogs but he uses the terrain and hedges to his advantage in a fight . The badger made this weird hissing shriek when it got really pissed off ,a bit like a Tasmainian devil . Dogs did little else today other than eat and sleep after. Im very glad there was no injury to my animals or the badger .

You do see some of the commercial grass cutters now leave a swathe of a green area intact , usually around the base of trees so little islands of wilderness exist for smaller creatures at least .

 

[crazydoc]

City regulations here require grass to be cut <4" for wildfire abatement (Dixie fire burned almost a million acres here last year.) I have no grass now - when I lived in AZ I had to cut an acre of grass once or twice a week almost all year - never again.
The dog died, and the cats burrow in the flower garden/strawberry foliage around the house when it's hot. Deer, ground squirrels, skunks and coons come around at times, but I've learned to live with them.

 

[JohnRoberts]

My brother also lives in LALA land and his town stipulates clearing his brush.

I have an acre+ of yard and really appreciate my zero turn. I also appreciate that my town does not worry about my yard, just my obsessive compulsive neighbor. Now I understand how Rand Paul got into an altercation with his neighbor over yardwork...

neighbors can be cra-cra...

JR

 

[fazer]

We moved from the city and brought 2 little fur baby house dogs with us. I have about 5 acres. I have to be careful and watch them there are coyote, bob cat and fox. They love walking around the property but I always walk with them. I need a bigger dog and may get one in the future. My wife wants a horse. Scares me thinking about taking care of one. I love my dogs.

 

[crazydoc]

If you have 5 acres and some of it can be fenced pasture, a horse shouldn't be a problem. We had horses until our girls hit their teen years - then interest waned eventually to zero. Well behaved horses are fairly easy to take care of (shoveling shit can be a pleasure), but expensive - vet, farrier and feed bills, and truck, trailer and tack if showing.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I lived on 37 acres in the forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains in CA for 22 years. Had to keep a defensible space cleared around structures, LP tank, etc. I did most of it myself. Inspections with uncorrected deviations led to fines. Insurance carriers started dropping customers the last few years.

Now live in the south (as in southeastern US, not Los Angeles) on 19 acres. Currently mow 2 (planting some trees and shrub beds to reduce that) and have another 3 in open fields near the house. About half an acre will be deer fenced and tilled for a garden. Haven't decided what to do with the rest near the house. Rear 14 is mixed hardwood forest and old pastures.

Currently restoring my father's tractor and implements that he gave me. Fun times.

We also a have a 35lb house dog who likes to go for walks with us. Lots of coyote here. If you get a horse consider a donkey for protection. No joke.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I lived on 37 acres in the forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains in CA for 22 years. Had to keep a defensible space cleared around structures, LP tank, etc. I did most of it myself. Inspections with uncorrected deviations led to fines. Insurance carriers started dropping customers the last few years.

Now live in the south (as in southeastern US, not Los Angeles) on 19 acres. Currently mow 2 (planting some trees and shrub beds to reduce that) and have another 3 in open fields near the house. About half an acre will be deer fenced and tilled for a garden. Haven't decided what to do with the rest near the house. Rear 14 is mixed hardwood forest and old pastures.

I am just now starting to see fruit from some of the trees I planted several years ago. My best producer is a fig tree but even that took two tries. The first fig tree died from a hard frost the first season.

Two of my three apple trees that survived are just starting to make apples but the skinny branches are bending under the weight. My peach and plum trees are still fruitless.

Currently restoring my father's tractor and implements that he gave me. Fun times.

I only have just over one acre to mow but sometimes wish I had a tractor to cut my rain ditches. My tree guy had his stump grinder hanging off the back of a sweet $60k tractor. Nice but I don't need one that bad.

We also a have a 35lb house dog who likes to go for walks with us. Lots of coyote here. If you get a horse consider a donkey for protection. No joke.

My kind neighbor who feeds all the stray cats sees a family of red foxes hitting the free food.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I am just now starting to see fruit from some of the trees I planted several years ago. My best producer is a fig tree but even that took two tries. The first fig tree died from a hard frost the first season.

We got blueberries from two of the three new bushes I planted this spring. My little muscadine vines already have a few green grapes on them. We'll just see how it goes. We had a hard freeze (20F) after a warm spell in very early spring that zapped a lot of plants. Then we had a late frost in early April that did it again. Toasted one of our azaleas and burned buds on a bunch of other plants.

Two of my three apple trees that survived are just starting to make apples but the skinny branches are bending under the weight. My peach and plum trees are still fruitless.

Are you in red clay country? What amendments did you use in the initial planting hole? Do you fertilize?

I only have just over one acre to mow but sometimes wish I had a tractor to cut my rain ditches. My tree guy had his stump grinder hanging off the back of a sweet $60k tractor. Nice but I don't need one that bad.

I bought a nice zero turn, but have a couple of areas down at the road that are too steep for it (a weakness of that type of mower). I end up getting that with a string trimmer every 3-4 weeks which is a lot of work as it's 10-20' wide and about 200' long.

My tractor is a '64 IH 404. About 40hp and 32hp at the PTO. Good for most things that don't require hydraulic controls beyond the 3pt hitch. She's not a beauty queen, but hopefully will continue to be servicable for a while longer.

My kind neighbor who feeds all the stray cats sees a family of red foxes hitting the free food.

JR

We had gray fox in CA. Watched a pair raise a couple of kits one summer. Very entertaining. Also had bobcat and coyote there, but also mountain lion. Our compost pile draws visitors. I need to work on an enclosure for it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

We got blueberries from two of the three new bushes I planted this spring.

I planted two different kinds of blueberries (supposedly they like that). First season I got berries from both, this year so far only berries from one.

I also planted some strawberries and raspberries... got only two nice sized strawberries but the plants are sending out runners. The raspberries are pushing up new plants but no raspberries yet.

My little muscadine vines already have a few green grapes on them. We'll just see how it goes. We had a hard freeze (20F) after a warm spell in very early spring that zapped a lot of plants. Then we had a late frost in early April that did it again. Toasted one of our azaleas and burned buds on a bunch of other plants.

When I first bought this property there was a grape arbor in the yard (probably muscadine). A couple decades of ignoring the arbor allowed the grapes to die off.

The heat and low rainfall is stressful to all my plants... I have drip irrigation for my raised beds and that really works.

Are you in red clay country? What amendments did you use in the initial planting hole? Do you fertilize?

I'm in sandy swampland (low ground). I have fertilized my pecan trees (with tree spikes twice). I use tomato fertilizer in my raised beds but nothing much for the other trees. I probably should.

I bought a nice zero turn, but have a couple of areas down at the road that are too steep for it (a weakness of that type of mower). I end up getting that with a string trimmer every 3-4 weeks which is a lot of work as it's 10-20' wide and about 200' long.

I am a big fan of my DR (done right) string trimmer... I also like my ferris zero turn, but the fat tires in back make it too easy to get stuck in soft/wet yard. I got stuck once already early this year in a part of my yard where I never got stuck before. I tend to avoid cutting too close to my wet rain ditches. I have a come-along hand winch and plenty of line, to winch myself out using a suitable tree. I have less tress since I cut so many down but I have lots of rope.

My tractor is a '64 IH 404. About 40hp and 32hp at the PTO. Good for most things that don't require hydraulic controls beyond the 3pt hitch. She's not a beauty queen, but hopefully will continue to be servicable for a while longer.

that should be adequate... I experimented with towing my 22" mower behind my zero turn to trim the rain ditch ... It worked after a fashion but was a little crude and dangerous to control. I flipped it over once with the engine running, I stopped using it.

We had gray fox in CA. Watched a pair raise a couple of kits one summer. Very entertaining. Also had bobcat and coyote there, but also mountain lion. Our compost pile draws visitors. I need to work on an enclosure for it.

I've seen red fox within a few miles of my house back when I was still jogging and biking...But my kind neighbor feeding stray cats apparently drew them even closer to downtown (cough) hickory.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I planted two different kinds of blueberries (supposedly they like that). First season I got berries from both, this year so far only berries from one.

Apparently the three main types, highbush, lowbush, and rabbit-eye have different pollination needs for a good crop.

https://greenupside.com/are-blueberry-plants-self-pollinating-how-to-ensure-pollination/
Nice chart here:
https://www.mygardenlife.com/uploads/2018/04/104515B Pollination Chart 800px3.png
Also, birds will steal your berries. We had mockingbirds get into ours early so I put up bird netting.

I also planted some strawberries and raspberries... got only two nice sized strawberries but the plants are sending out runners. The raspberries are pushing up new plants but no raspberries yet.

We grew strawberries in our garden when I was a kid. Field mice were always a problem for us. I have some large areas of wild blackberries in the old pasture areas. Need to make some trails through the head-high weeds to get in there to pick some.

When I first bought this property there was a grape arbor in the yard (probably muscadine). A couple decades of ignoring the arbor allowed the grapes to die off.

The heat and low rainfall is stressful to all my plants... I have drip irrigation for my raised beds and that really works.

I may need to run a water line to a valve header at one end of my garden for soaker hoses and/or drip. Rainfall has been very sporadic this year.

I'm in sandy swampland (low ground). I have fertilized my pecan trees (with tree spikes twice). I use tomato fertilizer in my raised beds but nothing much for the other trees. I probably should.

I have a couple of volunteer pecan trees. Spoke to a local guy who grows on a small commercial scale (he has three mature orchards 8-15 acres each). He told me to fertilize under the drip line with 30-0-0 in March when you see buds appear and again in August when you see nuts starting to form. He also does a June fertilization to boost his crop.

If your land is very sandy with little organic material you may need to augment. Contact one of the state universities with an ag program. They often have cheap soil testing services.

I am a big fan of my DR (done right) string trimmer... I also like my ferris zero turn, but the fat tires in back make it too easy to get stuck in soft/wet yard. I got stuck once already early this year in a part of my yard where I never got stuck before. I tend to avoid cutting too close to my wet rain ditches. I have a come-along hand winch and plenty of line, to winch myself out using a suitable tree. I have less tress since I cut so many down but I have lots of rope.

I've got an Echo string trimmer (hand held). Works well, but I run out of fuel before it does. Yesterday morning I filled it up and worked for an hour and a half before it was out. I was tired after an hour. Hot and humid.

Mower is a Husqvarna MZ54. So far so good. Burns about 1.5 gal/hr at 24hp. Will go 8mph, but with heavy grass and some bumpy areas I'm usually at 4-5mph.

that should be adequate... I experimented with towing my 22" mower behind my zero turn to trim the rain ditch ... It worked after a fashion but was a little crude and dangerous to control. I flipped it over once with the engine running, I stopped using it.

Redneck engineering. I've seen a couple of rigs like that. My 404 is plenty adequate for a 5' bush hog, 7' disc harrow, and two or three bottom plow. I'm looking for a used auger for my garden fence project. 500' of fence means a lot of post holes. We're in red clay country with some milky quartz rock mixed in. I've been thinking about doing hay, but that would involve several thousand in additional used implements (haybine or sickle mower, rake, baler, maybe tedder) and some of those require extra hydraulic control. We'll see.

I've seen red fox within a few miles of my house back when I was still jogging and biking...But my kind neighbor feeding stray cats apparently drew them even closer to downtown (cough) hickory.

I'm several miles out of town. We've seen rabbits, chipmunk, armadillo, turkey, deer...have seen bobcat and coyote tracks and hear coyote singing some nights. Coyote scat within 200' of the house is common. I have no desire for suburban or town living. Just not my thing.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Apparently the three main types, highbush, lowbush, and rabbit-eye have different pollination needs for a good crop.

https://greenupside.com/are-blueberry-plants-self-pollinating-how-to-ensure-pollination/
Nice chart here:
https://www.mygardenlife.com/uploads/2018/04/104515B Pollination Chart 800px3.png

yup, sounds like the two related blueberries. First season was ok, so I suspect just a bad season.

Also, birds will steal your berries. We had mockingbirds get into ours early so I put up bird netting.

Birds love my figs... I already put us some bird netting on my fig tree but it barely covers it, so I have more on order due in tomorrow.

Birds also like my tomatoes but they are still green so far.

We grew strawberries in our garden when I was a kid. Field mice were always a problem for us. I have some large areas of wild blackberries in the old pasture areas. Need to make some trails through the head-high weeds to get in there to pick some.

As i kid I spent way too many hours picking raspberries in our garden but the basket was always empty when I finished.

I may need to run a water line to a valve header at one end of my garden for soaker hoses and/or drip. Rainfall has been very sporadic this year.

it helps. I have a moisture meter as backup.

I have a couple of volunteer pecan trees. Spoke to a local guy who grows on a small commercial scale (he has three mature orchards 8-15 acres each). He told me to fertilize under the drip line with 30-0-0 in March when you see buds appear and again in August when you see nuts starting to form. He also does a June fertilization to boost his crop.

pecans respond to similar fertilizer to standard yard stuff, but maybe with some extra zinc... the pecan tree spikes are dialed in.

I have a picture during some rain where you could really see the pattern of where the tree spikes were placed. The tree spikes helped the grass nearby grow higher and greener.

The tree spikes are placed in a circle under the drip line....

I spray several times a year... Dormant oil (like neem oil) in the winter to kill insect eggs. In the spring I spray some special bacteria (BT) that kills tent caterpillars. ETC. Years ago I had to compete with squirrels and bugs eating my pecans... the bugs are easier to stop than the squirrels but I have K'd a bunch of them.

I have been working on my DIY tree spraying for years now. Getting better every year.

If your land is very sandy with little organic material you may need to augment. Contact one of the state universities with an ag program. They often have cheap soil testing services.

I don't plan to live that long...

I do notice after reading up on pecan tree management that my trees were never properly pruned when young. Last year I pruned off several huge low branches that should have been pruned off decades ago. This experiment is still a work in process. The trees tried to push out a bunch of new branches, so there should be excess growth energy that I hope goes into the nuts.

I've got an Echo string trimmer (hand held). Works well, but I run out of fuel before it does. Yesterday morning I filled it up and worked for an hour and a half before it was out. I was tired after an hour. Hot and humid.

I have a small battery powered string trimmer for small work, but the DR trimmer is the real deal for serious trimming. Sometimes when working in hot weather the DR suffers some vapor lock (?), and won't start up again if I kill it. I consider that a sign that I need to take a break.

Today was 100' in the shade.

Mower is a Husqvarna MZ54. So far so good. Burns about 1.5 gal/hr at 24hp. Will go 8mph, but with heavy grass and some bumpy areas I'm usually at 4-5mph.

my ferris is about 25 HP... I can cut my 1+ acre yard proper in 20 minutes, it takes me 2 days to mow the trim.

Redneck engineering. I've seen a couple of rigs like that. My 404 is plenty adequate for a 5' bush hog, 7' disc harrow, and two or three bottom plow. I'm looking for a used auger for my garden fence project. 500' of fence means a lot of post holes. We're in red clay country with some milky quartz rock mixed in. I've been thinking about doing hay, but that would involve several thousand in additional used implements (haybine or sickle mower, rake, baler, maybe tedder) and some of those require extra hydraulic control. We'll see.

hay to feed your doggies

I'm several miles out of town. We've seen rabbits, chipmunk, armadillo, turkey, deer...have seen bobcat and coyote tracks and hear coyote singing some nights. Coyote scat within 200' of the house is common. I have no desire for suburban or town living. Just not my thing.

I am both down town and in the boonies. I live on the road between the interstate and nowhere.

JR

 

[Tubetec]

As long as Ive lived where I am now ,Ive always taken free timber for granted , always plenty of kindling to get her going and as much as I need from dead trees to heat the place 6 months of the year .
I have to move from here very soon , either closer to the city and windfall timber is non existant , or out to the country where transport costs becomes the issue .

 

[AnalogPackrat]

That's one thing I need to address here. The original owners put in an ugly unvented gas log thing in the great room. There's no easy/good way to replace it with a free-standing woodstove.

In CA I heated more than half of our home with wood--mostly from trees downed in storms or stuff that had to be removed for defensible space. I had more than I needed and I enjoyed the work (cut, move, split, stack). I missed all of that this past winter. Nothing beats a hot woodstove on a cold winter day. It only makes sense if you can cut your own, IMO.

 

[JohnRoberts]

That's one thing I need to address here. The original owners put in an ugly unvented gas log thing in the great room. There's no easy/good way to replace it with a free-standing woodstove.

In CA I heated more than half of our home with wood--mostly from trees downed in storms or stuff that had to be removed for defensible space. I had more than I needed and I enjoyed the work (cut, move, split, stack). I missed all of that this past winter. Nothing beats a hot woodstove on a cold winter day. It only makes sense if you can cut your own, IMO.

I have a wood burning fireplace with a fan forced air heat box. I haven't used that fireplace for decades while I routinely burn tree limbs and trees I downed in my outdoor burn pile.

A few of my neighbors have the gas log rigs as cheap winter heat. My house was built with resistance electric heat, perhaps cheap to build but not cheap to operate. Several years ago I installed a modern heat pump and it dramatically cut my electric bill.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

I have a sad update about that bird that got tangled up in my fig tree bird netting. I was not trying to catch birds, just keep them off my figs. This bird got all tangled up in the bird netting. As I tried to cut him free he kept struggling and getting more tangled. I got him loose from the fig tree by cutting a big hole in my netting but he was still tangled up. I couldn't hold him still enough to cut the rest of the netting away, his wings were free and he fluttered away across the yard. I couldn't see where he ended up so hoped he got away clean and untangled himself.

Alas yesterday while cutting my grass I found him still tangled up and quite dead... I gave him a proper viking funeral on my tree limb burn pile.
====

My young apple tree that only made 3 apples total last year, made too many this year for the still skinny branches. The wind storm a couple nights ago broke off one skinny branch with 7 apples on it.

JR

 

[Rusan]

Two of my three apple trees that survived are just starting to make apples but the skinny branches are bending under the weight. My peach and plum trees are still fruitless

Hey JR, I'm not very knowledgeable on most subjects, but fruit trees are something I'm pretty well versed on (but not by choice, lol). We had a big peach orchard when I was growing up, as well as Bartlett pear, Damson plum and Golden Delicious apples. Lots and lots of work, but nothing in the world beats the taste of a ripe Alberta peach you picked two minutes ago.

Have you pruned your apple tree? It can make all the difference in not only how much fruit is borne, but also the limb-breaking problem and even how resistant to disease they are. In general, if it hasn't been pruned before then you'll need to be pretty aggressive with it. In your location, I'd recommend somewhere around mid February, or just after the danger of a hard frost or freeze has passed. I'm sure there are lots of good online resources for apple pruning, although there's definitely a black art to it and one size doesn't fit all. And, Jobe's Fruit Tree Spikes and a pound of triple-10 fertilizer applied around the tree's dripline in the early spring and late autumn are your best buddy.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Hey JR, I'm not very knowledgeable on most subjects, but fruit trees are something I'm pretty well versed on (but not by choice, lol). We had a big peach orchard when I was growing up, as well as Bartlett pear, Damson plum and Golden Delicious apples. Lots and lots of work, but nothing in the world beats the taste of a ripe Alberta peach you picked two minutes ago.

I had both apple and pear trees on my property decades ago. They are both long gone now. The pear tree got trashed by Hurricane Katrina dropping my huge cottonwood on it, the apple tree had it's sunlight stolen by a huge oak on my neighbors property. I have rescued two wild pecan trees in my far back yard by dropping nearby trees, that were stealing their sun light.

Several years ago I planted new Peach and apple trees. I have pruned as well as I can manage from internet advice. These trees are about the same age, my first peach tree died and this is my second try, I planted two granny smith apple trees, with one still living. I have another apple (johnathan?) that was a freebie tree from the nursery. It has about 3 or 4 apples coming. I still have too many apples coming on that one granny smith tree, I have removed a few with bird pecks from before I put up bird net on the apple tree. The peach tree made one premature fruit last year that dropped off, and one premature peach this year that also dropped. I have 2 plum trees also underperforming.

Have you pruned your apple tree? It can make all the difference in not only how much fruit is borne, but also the limb-breaking problem and even how resistant to disease they are. In general, if it hasn't been pruned before then you'll need to be pretty aggressive with it.

The trees are still pretty immature. Maybe I'll share a picture of the apple tree.

In your location, I'd recommend somewhere around mid February, or just after the danger of a hard frost or freeze has passed. I'm sure there are lots of good online resources for apple pruning, although there's definitely a black art to it and one size doesn't fit all. And, Jobe's Fruit Tree Spikes and a pound of triple-10 fertilizer applied around the tree's dripline in the early spring and late autumn are your best buddy.

There is a lot of rain water run off near the trees but tree spikes would be persistent enough to fertilize them. I have used Jobe's tree spikes to fertilize my pecan trees, twice over the last several years. The pecan tree spikes caused lush green patches of yard above them, suggesting I could fertilize my grass too.

FWIW I am experimenting with pruning my several mature pecan trees decades after the fact. I can tell they were never properly pruned when young by the fat branches growing out down too close to the ground. I pruned some of those branches back last winter while they were dormant. I'll see this year if my efforts are rewarded. I couldn't find any good advice about "way too late" pruning of pecan trees, most advice says to thin out every other one when they grow too (large) close together in a mature orchard.

JR