there has been an abrupt and unexpected change in my plans for the "food forest" here..as we now have soil..lots and lots of soil.
as the neighbors decided to redig a pond..and give us not only the pond scum scrapings from the bottom, but also the topsoil..yes I said top soil..and some fill that is really good soil as well..we are now getting this piled in our woods as there was no where else to pile it..the wet scummy stuff, as well as the grassy soddy stuff and the decent dark fill that they dug up..some clay mixed in and a little sand..very little.
as they were throwing it in piles in the woods..my son was kinda mixing it with the tractor bucket to get a "blend"..
then we had an opportunity to use their backhoe and enlarge OUR pond which is right next to our woods..so the clay and muck that came out there..went into the woods and along side the woods as well.
so now what was once a low dry aspen woods..will have some new additions..
i'm not sure what i'm thinking of all of this change ..as it all happened in the last 7 days..
but now our woods is full of dirt and muck piles, here is a before picture...of the woods and my thoughts were to just....clear dead trees and plant..i had planted 3 walnuts in the front already and they are growing well.
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but here is what the woods looked like 3 days ago..there is more in there now..mostly sod...and black dirt
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and now where we dug out our new pond is all this stuff piled..which is mostly clay and muck..and cattails..these piles are all along the edge of the pond and edge of the woods to the right or east of the above photos..there also is a swampy field behind the far end of the piles..
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so now the new plan begins..
Joel (my son) and I have been talking..we did leave a path into the woods..some dead trees will have to be removed from the path to get the brushhog in there to remove some brushy undergrowth..to reach the "backside" of the "pond" piles..and a couple of dead aspens and smaller trees will have to be removed to get the backblade and bucket of the tractor to the piles..but Joel plans to ..when the weather is dry enough..get back there behind those pond piles and slowly distribute them into the lower parts of the "woods"..and then put some of the rich pond scrapings and topsoil over the clay ..kinda mixing it in together....which should raise the grade up a couple of feet making it easier to get in and out of the woods..and more open to the sun..
after this is done..and it could take a couple years..the plan will be to bring in understory trees, shrubs and plants..leaving some clearing to the south for sun to get in..and try to make this a productive woods..but as you can see..my plan has been set back a good year or two..but i think in the longrun it will turn out to be a better plan??