bruce Fine

trying to find tree planters about 600 trees going in b4 dormancy ends

I saw a documentary of how vermiculite mine caused huge problem poisoning a town with aspestos. I have found much conflicting info on internet and thought I would see if anyone here knows bout it.

weeds can be a problem. some sort of weed barrier might work well, beware of using wood chips or cypress/cedar mulch. if not composted first it eats up nitrogen and many type of wood chips can attract insects and pests. you might want to introduce biochar into planting holes. it could give your trees the advantage they need to out grow weeds. using a hoe around each of your trees early in the spring is best method for weed control. if your using machines a tiller around each tree is a quick solution to keep weed pressure down. I have tried an all natural approach just letting everything grow for a few reasons but primarily to keep wild critters especially deer from eating my trees. I have lost quite a few fruit trees, for reasons I still don't understand, but the 25% still alive has gained huge growth this past year. Nut tress planted I believe I have lost about 15-20 percent but I planted at 10' spacing knowing I will have to transplant some when they get bigger. and I know that I will need to get another different variety for best nut production and pollonation. Still searching for an inexpensive variety of chestnut that is blight resistant and differnt that the variety that seems to be most predominant which was created at UT and used by many state forestry programs which is where I got mine. but the cost of each of those trees was very low about 50 cents each and I have gotten a old tractor with finish mower that is 5' wide and hope to get it running good enough to work with and will attempt to mow between rows this coming summer. I may have to put hardware cloth rings around each tree if wildlife pressure is too great. I refuse to use gyphosphate or other big pharma/chemical products. I'd rather fight weeds other ways than to introduce poison to my property.

Just my $0.02

wow lots of good advice here.
if you are not using glass or solid poly plastic the two layer greenhouse plastic works real well it can last 15 or more years and is excellent insulator as far as greenhousees go

anyone have experience with any of these in southeast us. looking for ideas. I'm leaning toward starting a cob building but earth bag and straw bale are also attractive. these seems to be high clay content in soil on the property but there is also lots of what some people call chert which is a more sandy soil with lots of small chips of rock.
one thing that concerns me is there are subteranian termites everywhere. in one summer they built free standing tunnels up through 4 feet of cedar shelving to get to a cardboard box in the root cellar and eat normal pallets in 1 to 2 years many other places on property. although i've found the termites don't mess with anything made of red cedar. maybe using red cedar shavings in the cob mix. This is why I'm asking. I don't know and want to be sure of what i'm doing before investing time energy and money in project.

oh thought i'd add this
when planting you might want to incorporate some biochar into planting hole. biochar lasts long long long time and make everything grow better

i got chestnut trees from w va state nursery program for about 50 cents per plant, state of tn program ran out of chestnut by time i had money to buy them. Let them grow naturally after planting and at least 80 percent still alive. got peaches, cherries, apples and grapes from ty ty ga. 2+ years ago only about 25 percent have survive. we were very careful to follow the suppliers instructions on planting and had to set up drip irrigation and still only 25 percent survived, they were very expensive trees and won't and can't do that again. the state dept of forestry nursery programs are a great thing to look into. they have many different species and the cost is very low and they are in many times grown in the same type soil and conditions that you have being a fairly local source. 20+ years ago I bought bought 500 peach and cherry trees from oregon. cant remember the farm, they were spectacular. at least 1 foot taller than advertised and cost was very fair about $5 for 8'-10' bare root peach trees. unfortunately that was different farm and I no longer have acess, live and learn.
This is probably a good time of year to order although early bird gets worm.

good luck with it, one of the best investment to your property in my opinion are trees that produce crop for many many years

i have found that a shop vac works well for the one that make it inside

sounds just bout right, lets release some invasive species to multiply out in the wilds, not knowing what the consquences mite be

does anyone else have swarms of lady bugs. yesterday it warmed up and huge swarms came out of the forest millions of em. they find their way though cracks and crevices. i had to vacuum them up b4 going to sleep.
anyone know  of a deturant or natural control.