Andrea Wiley

The double fence were doin too! I don't know Walter jefferies, thanks I'll be checking him out. I'm toying with the idea of planting them thickly to turn it into a food hedge, so I can eventually get rid of the fence. Good tree sites, I don't know about Texas but I know ks and Missouri states have awesome pricing from thier forest services.

I don't have any direct experience with this, but math wise I figure on spending one dollar per finished pig lb in weight. So looking at the feed conversion rate above, 8 lbs scraps may be worth one dollar. I say May because of nutritional quality.
So I'd scrap mileage and other ideas of compensation and make it a flat rate per pound. I would leave the solicitation up to them so you are not spending your time on it either.

Letellier, that spring idea is great!
Dana- good luck with your project!! We are starting pastured pigs this coming year, such a task to add new animals to the farm!
I like then pen idea, like you say what else are you going to do with em? I guess you could put them in a corral fashion.
Are you planting any perennials for your hogs? Like a apples or oaks?

Wow! That was fun. I'm actually surprised at how many I knew! But now I really wanna take a Pdc from Ben because that lil quiz sure showed what I didn't know as well!

Cj - you're right on that! I'm lucky ks states forest service has several seedlings for less than a buck a piece, I will def be planting seedlings when I can get them for those prices!

Dan - yeah, one of the reasons I asked is because the cattle ate 50 oak seedlings I planted last year. Well, they ate half if them, the other half they decided the nice loose soil I created was too good not to sit and roll in. And rabbits ate my peach and persimmon tree right outside my front door!

Thanks so much for the replies! I didn't expect a great survival rate, but you guys really confirmed it got me.
Dan- you'll have to let me like how the elderberry expire meant goes! That's another species I want.
Cj - I'm planning in mimosa, honey locust, and pea shrub for my n fixers, and having both sides of the swale lined with electric poultry netting. The website listed does have great pricing, but I'm talking thousands of linear feet turned into a giant food hedge. Just two acres would cost upwards of two k ( 2000 linear feet, avg one tree every five feet diagonally set in a row if two, at $2 a tree that's 1600 just for mainframe overstory). That's why I'm thinking seeds. And why buy seeds when you got em free!
Micheal c- love the flag idea, and I thought about the seed bed. I think ill def do a seedling bed, but I might do both, that way I don't potentially lose a year of growth either way.
Micheal q- interesting idea! When you say freshly harvested, you mean picking the apple off the tree, taking the seeds and planting ASAP right? Do the start growing right away? Do you basically overwinter them to graft that first spring? Just trying to picture the timeline.

Can you think of anyone who has planted at a large scale like this? Mark Shepard is the only one I can really think of, and his book didn't go into technique very much.

Hi Yall,
I was wondering if I can get some opinions or technical advice on the laziest way I can think of to plant a food forest. My Hubby and I are going to be planting 8 acres in a silvopasture type setup this winter/spring. We are digging the swales probably in Jan or Feb and planting will follow. Now, theres no way we could financially handle planting even a half acre in seedling trees, so we are wanting to plant just seeds. I figure if I plant a 1000 apple trees, I might get 100 that taste good and 900 that will be useful in some other function! Right now we are going to be running cattle and chickens through the pasture, but as the trees grow we want to switch over to mainly pigs, who I think would relish all this fruit. But I digress..
It is a windfall year for apples (in particular) around here, but they are very small. I think I have 4 bushels of apples so far, and none of them are larger than a typical lemon. My thoughts are that this particular haul will be a PITA processing them for pies or butter or cider, keeping the seeds, then stratifying, then planting. Could I just plant one apple per hole that I want an apple in? Chuck the whole dang thing in there, and then cull seedlings later in the fall? Im also thinking of doing this for plums, mimosa, peaches, apricots, really any tree fruit I can get my hands on. I think I can get a pretty good selection of low cost/free cull fruits from a PYO operation down the road a bit.
I guess my questions are; can I chuck this fruit in my freezer, whole, until we dig the swales and I can plant them? Do you think the general stratification needs for the seeds will be met? My gut says yes, and that the sugary bits from the fruit will only do wonders for the microbes, but I tend to try to stack to many functions. (Because, as I said, Im lazy.)