I'd like to update this project of mine, I think I can offer some good advice for first timers trying to start a forest garden like this.
First of all, I certainly bit off alot more than I can chew with a full time job, a big garden, and a young family. That said, I did pretty well with the time I could give it for the first season.
The brushwall and woven junkpole fence did indeed keep adult deer from getting inside the perimeter of the grove. It did not keep small baby deer, rabbits, or squirrels from entering however. The large native grapevine i draped over the woven pole fence should become massive this upcomimg year and I will hopefully be grafting onto it other varieties. It's 50' long and the thickness of my forearm with lots of offshoots.
The trees from last winter's stratification project went into hand dug swales and swale mounds on contour. Chestnuts, Antonkova apples, manchurian apricots,
hazlenut, hardy pecan, shagbark hickory, black locust, and a few butternuts were the main species. They thrived and grew very well.
I did also direct sow hickory nuts, hardy pecans, butternuts, and hazelnuts. 6 hours later they were all gone dug cleanly out of their holes by squirrels.
In addition all hickories, butternuts, and hazelnut seedlings were dug out even when the nut was removed from the root prior to transplanting.
Most survived their short time out of the ground and I laid heavy sticks across the base of them to keep squirrels from messing with them anymore.
The cover crop did very well too, nitrogen fixing nodules were present in the winter pea mix I added, but I just didn't have the time to do as much diverse cover cropping as I'd hoped.
The buckthorn seedlings didn't overtake much though, and the trees I cut down for the most part remained under control by suffocating them under old carpet or cardboard.
Everything went well besides the baby fawn nipping things until late summer when something got in, I'm guessing a young deer and ate the tips off of many trees. By late fall they had recovered and despite some rabbit nipping here or there I think I had a successful 1st year. I do believe the 6' metal wire fence was not enough to keep deer out though, I need to tighten that up this winter by watching for hoofprints in the area and adding tall vertical poles to any spot that is an entry point
I need to finish removing buckthorn and clearing the area for the next phase which is planting small fruit/nut/veg perennials, adding more biomass producing plants like comfrey and burdock, and starting on a hedge/fence project that will eventually encircle my entire 10 acres starting with the southern grove.
I'm doing heavy reading including edible forest gardens, paradise lot, restoration agriculture, and online research.
I plan on utilizing this area as a small model of my property and use it as a lab for my food forest experiments, buckthorn removal experiments, and start increasing my overall yields of certain perennial fruits I've become fond of like aronia, king of the north grape, raspberry, ramps, wild plum, and nanking cherry.
Eventually I hope this area will replace the dying oak overstory with hickories and chestnuts, or at least add some diversity where there is none in the woods right now.