Permaculture Food System Experiments in Wyoming

Myron Platte wrote:How is everything now? Stuff growing?

Haha no.

It's been a rough year for the entire area. Even well established trees in areas that are definitely getting watered are dead. It's crazy.

So a lot of my fruit trees in the area I actually irrigate are dead. Very discouraging.

The sainfoin isn't looking as big as usual. I hear from others that things are short too so that seems to be weather related.

It's just really dry and windy and yeah. Things aren't looking great here.

Sorry to hear your crops are taking such a hit this year. It sounds really desiccated there.

Best luck going forward.

Rufus

https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Alnus+rubra I found this tree, and thought of you. Cold and wind hardy. Nitrogen fixer. Good for shelterbelts.

Oh, one more thing. Geoff Lawton's advice for when you're on a large-scale, difficult site on broad acreage is to go really small, find something that works, and then extend, adjusting as you go. Might be applicable to your situation.

I had another thought about your project. Since it's super difficult to get trees to grow where you are, your best bet is probably to make your own trees, by planting seeds. My guess is that one out of every thousand seedlings, at very least, should have what it takes to grow in your harsh conditions. Once you have something producing, though, stuff can start to really snowball, because you can plant out seeds from the survivors, which already have good genetics for your area. By the third generation, stuff should be looking pretty good. Mark Shepard does this.

elle, not sure if there is as many honey locusts down there as in Casper, but it wouldn't surprise me, if so, that is one tree that i've found a plethora of viable seeds for, so far i've had no trouble getting them to sprout, but gettign them to survive their first year and really put down roots... thats where i've struggled, i think im going to transition to keeping seedling trees in a nursery area until year 2 or 3 and then transplant

also did you see on another thread that someone says there is a pinyon pine next to the holiday in at the 25/80 intersection? i didn't know pinyons could grow all the way up here, hoping i can check that out for some seeds while im down there

This post is very old but I got some pictures yesterday to add to it. Keep in mind with these pics that it is 2 weeks since the hard snow that caused the drifts. It's just been too windy to get outside to take pictures.

I set up this tire barrier a few years ago. I had hoped it would catch blowing sainfoin seeds and start some growing stuff in a dead zone. So far no sainfoin but it is doing a very interesting job of catching snow.

Looks like the fire ant hills are also interesting snow fences. Each hill had a collection of snow around it.

Tumbleweeds collected on the fence have made an amazing snow mass.

Our path is just barely crowned but it's collecting snow as well.