Christopher Vaught

I also planted mine for the fruits, figuring if I did not care for them, the other wildlife certainly would, but I do quite enjoy them. Of the four Celtis varieties I have planted, only the australis has fruited for me so far, and it was the last type I planted. I was also concerned about Celtis australis not being hardy in my area. Apparently it is a wide ranging species, where some phenotypes originating in warmer areas will not be as hardy as seed sourced from trees in colder regions. Mine came from Oikos Tee Crops in Michigan, and has grown well here in Maryland.

Similar situation here, except the farmer spraying the plant and insect poisons, leases the land from me. The farmer is a friend who is careful of spray drift coming over onto my tree and shrub "crops".  Some years he has not been able to spray himself, and hired contractors to do it, which were not careful at all. The contractors all seemed to have the "little man in a big tractor complex", where their mentality was, "hey there is something growing on that fence, lets spray the fence, there is something growing along the woods edge, lets spray the woods, there is something living over there, lets kill it". It got to the point that I had to tell them to keep the poison spray back five feet into the field they were planting, and that if weeds became a serious issue in that 5 foot buffer zone, I would hand spray it for them. When I still got some drift damage, I put up a long row of the little orange flags 25 feet out into the cultivated zone, and told my farmer friend that I was now taking that 25 feet as a buffer zone between his poisons, and my crops. And so far have just been letting that 25 foot zone grow up in volunteer "weeds".  
I think that when someone carelessly lets their poison spray onto your property, you should casually let them know how many hundreds or thousands of dollars you have invested in your plants, crops, animals etc. and that your attorney will see that you are reimbursed well for any and all damages done by such a primitive poison spraying practice. I mean it is really primitive right? For how many thousands of years have homo sapiens like us been able to grow plants to eat, without having to kill anything, much less everything, growing within 2, 5, 10, or 20 feet of the plants?.

I have had a northern hackberry tree planted in my chicken run for about 10 years now. I was not aware of it being allelopathic, so have not been on the lookout for it. Growing under and near it are a variety of weeds that the chickens keep trimmed, along with many new Hackberry trees that sprout up from the roots. A couple autumn olive cultivars are doing well near this tree. I also have a couple Celtis sinensis, Japaneese Hackberry trees of the same age planted from seed. These are in a lawn setting so I have noticed no problems with other plants growing near them, but they do seem to have shaded out the fescue. I also have a few Celtis laevigata, Southern hackberry/sugarberry trees. One has many tiger lilies thriving under it, and another has gooseberries, and viburnums growing close by. If you want the fruits and nuts from a hackberry tree, I am getting the best harvest from Celtis australis, the Euorpoean or Himilayan hackberry, aka. Nettletree. These have slightly larger fruits, and so far I have detected no negative allelopathic effects from them either, but will be looking closer for such things this summer, than I have been in the past.

Yes, it will be difficult to improve a large area of clay soil quickly, without having truck loads of organic matter being brought in.
Last year we took 4 acres of depleted and compacted clay soil farm land out of the all too typical corn, soybean, winter cover crop, corporate rotation plan, and started converting it back into a more natural permie food forest. One free source of organic matter I have not seen mentioned yet is the left over, or used mash from small local breweries and distilleries. One of our local micro-brewers produces about 500 gallons of wet used rye, barley & corn grains per week, that they are quite happy that I come haul away for them.  I tried composting this spent grain all by itself in piles, or in my compost bins made from pallets stood upon their ends to make a container, but that did not work. The spent grain that did not ooze between the pallet slats decomposed slowly because it was not mixed well with other types of decomposing material. I also tried just spreading an inch or two thick layer upon the ground, but it still decomposed slowly and did not appear to be attractive as food for the birds, deer, or other local fauna. I did find though that when I tilled the spent grain into the clay soil it broke down very quickly. The small size of the individual grains that were already inoculated with a variety of yeasts, were pretty much decomposed within two weeks during the summer months, and about three weeks in the winter. After tilling the grain in about 3 times over last winter, the beds were soft and fluffy and produced good garden crops this past summer, and seem to be set now for future no till plantings.

My wife and I live on a 38 acre homestead on the Delmarva peninsula, and I heat the home totally with wood off the homestead, as well as provide my elderly parents with wood for their fireplace pleasure as well. I used to only harvest the roughly 3" diameter or greater pieces for fuel. The smaller pieces were left in place to decompose, chipped for much, or piled up for animal habitat, that we have now taken to calling "rabbitat". For about the last 8 years I have started harvesting anything down to about 1" diameter, cutting those pieces with loppers down to sticks about 3 feet long each, and stuffing those sticks into old chicken or dog food bags for convenient storage, stacking and transport. We now use these 1" to 3" diameter sticks every winter to boil maple sap into syrup on a simple makeshift grill in the woods close to the maple trees. I have noticed a difference between the stick densities and apparent heat produced by them. It seems that on most species that I have tried, the current seasons growth, "watersprouts" etc. are noticeably lighter in weight, and seem to produce less heat than any pieces that had overwintered while growing and were at least two years old. I am wondering if anyone has seen research other than my anecdotal personal experiences, that shows by species, the BTU's of new growth wood? For example, do black locust or Osage orange still rank near the top in BTU ratings, when using small less than 2 " diameter wood, or are most studies and BTU ratings ranked using mostly split wood, which is assumed to contain a large percentage of older heartwood in the samples.

Still not late for Pawpaws to sprout. Mine here on the Delmarva usually do not sprout above ground until late July or early August. They could very well have already sprouted underground forming a good taproot prior to emerging above ground, and making one to three leaves only, in their first season.

Howdy folks,
I had a friend that worked many years in the USDA Fruit Lab at Greenbelt, MD. Years ago he told me that while doing tests on a variety of blueberry plants at the lab, they found that by simply adding a few rusting nails (or other small rusty iron objects) to the soil around the blueberry plants, you could continually keep acidifying the soil around the plants, and keep the soil continually supplied with the iron that the blueberry plants like.
When I put in my 1st blueberry bed 20 years ago I added some peat to the soil. Then about 15 years ago I just added a few rusty nails around each plant, and have been having heavy blueberry harvests ever since. Simple solutions like this are not something the peat or soil acidifier industries like to publicize.

I also have been looking for plants, and/or information, to grow privacy hedges in an existing wooded area. Depending upon how wide or thick you want your hedge to be, you may consider native holly trees which will grow in the shade, being fuller and denser where they receive more sun. If you don't plant them all in a straight line, but rather stagger, or zig zag the planting, you could place them about 3 feet apart and even if they are in deep shade and don't get much light, they will still be difficult for homo sapiens to pass through. You can mix in some native rhododendrons which tolerate significant amounts of shade. Add some green briars in amongst the hollies and it will become pretty unwelcoming to human traffic on foot or all terrain tire. Around here the Southern Arrowood Viburnums are native and grow pretty dense in my shaded woods. They don't flower as much in the deep shade but still grow and get pretty dense. Such a hedge probably will not keep hogs fully contained, although may work for larger less aggressive livestock. Good luck !