posted 2 hours ago
I'm not sure this is the best forum for my post, as there are elements that for multiple forums on this site, also its my first post so I'm unsure of the flow here
I'm in zone 5b-6a on the Canadian map and zone 6a-6b on the USDA map
I am trying to clear some land that was cleared in 2010 for animals but never used, (16 years ago) to plant mostly food trees now, but a few good looking non foods would be cool too to make it nice, I mostly want plants that come back year after year, I don't want to keep planting anuals every year, also native plants would be best but I can make exceptions (I'm in Ontario near Georgian bay)
I am in a lousy spot, I'll post a YouTube video later of what the spot looks like when there is light out, but right now I'll just describe it;
To the south is a small ridge about 5 or 8 feet high with a line of tall maple trees blocking my south light
To the east is forest, to the north is forest
To the west is a single tall maple tree, and the rest is open field
Its also ancient shore line of Georgian bay, so under the very thin top soil is all sand, its funny if you dig up a rock its usually rounded from water that was once there a long time ago
I'm also in a valley, I'm on 44 acres and in spots the water comes right to the surface like a swamp, its a little dryer in the spot I'm clearing, but it could possibly get wet, like after the snow melt
Right now growing in the spot I'm clearing I've seen maples, oak, ironwood, poplar, red elderberry, staghorn sumac AND BUCKTHORN 😅(the forest is LOADED with buckthorn, like impassible in spots, someone not far away on the same forest I seen with a ornamental buckthorn plant on thier front lawn, I made a joke on another site that its unhinged behaviour lol)
Claude LLM tells me the maples to the south make it a bad spot because they will block my best light, it said the forest to the east is not great, the forest to the north has no effect, and the clearing to the west is my only saving grace and my fruit trees should to on the west opening line
I just started yesterday, I cut down about a dozen very small trees, mostly maples, I know they will come back up but I'll deal with that when it happens, I left the bcukthorn because I ordered a buckthorn blaster, I'll dab those with glyphosate when it arrives
I started two scrap piles one with oak and maple, and one with sumac and ironwood, because I ran out of ai tokens lol I assumed the maple and oak are good mulch but I didn't know about iron wood and sumac, the buckthorn when I cut it will be put in its own pile farther away
I don't think I'll get very far this year before the snow arrives on November, so spring planting will be in the tall maple shadows most likely, what are some good low light plants i should get for there?
Also I need a cheap wood chipper for the trees i cut down, so far the biggest might be 5 or 6 inches at the base, a small corded chipper can handle that?
I'll make sure I clear some of the west side as well, cause I'm going to order a few apple trees to come in the spring, I'm thinking of starting with applecrabs, (about a hundred feet or 200 feet away maybe I have two trees already, one a yellow transparent apple and the other unknown, also in the forest is a unkown tree that is very lousey due to low light, but it still fruits a couple apples)
I asked Claude LLM if I could plant raspberries under the tall maples, it said I probably could but the yeild might be low, is that true?
Also I buried 120 black walnuts in two buckets last week, the squirells found one of them, I have no idea how many they got, im hoping just a few, but hopefully they germinate, I'm going to try and sell a bunch, but plant some too, I know they posion the ground with juglone so I'll have to be strategic where I plant them
That's all I can think of for now, any and all advice is appreciated even if its about something I didn't mention, as I'm completely new, I didn't even like plants before June or July she. The transparent apples fruited and I decided I wanted to star foraging lol
I'll make a new post with a video of the area in a few hours when the light is up, so there's a more solid idea of what I'm working with
