I mentioned teaweed, but doubted myself.

It seems to have some positives and negatives. It’s apparently very aggressive and hard to get rid of. If I were someone who liked to plant “crops” in the summer time and planned on doing that in the future….then this teaweed would likely be a nuisance to that effort and not something you want to get started. However, I’m not the least bit concerned about being able to plant beans, corn, etc……As you see, I’m going in a different direction.

The fact that teaweed is so persistent and tough is a plus for me. I’m in a high deer density area and need something that can withstand the browsing. Not to mention that the nutritional benefits of this stuff is off the charts compared to most everything else. It’s better than cowpeas….better than alfalfa….and even more nutritionally valuable than soybeans in some respects. It says that it has a very deep growing tap root and that the plant is very high in calcium and phosphorus. Beyond benefiting the deer….this also tells me that this plant is a deep nutrient recycler. One possible downside that I can see is that with it being so woody….it may be a pain in the arse to bushhog if it gets too big. The way it’s being browsed right now at my place, I don’t think getting too big will be much of an issue. We'll see.

I finally pulled the trigger and ordered a shaker of seeds from Southern Habitats. Now have to decide where to plant it. Might try creating some plugs with peat pods to transplant around early September.

I hit my patch with a little extra fert before the last rain shower came through and spent a little time weeding out some of the crabgrass from around it. I'm going to rope off the whole patch and use it for an initial seed source.

Interesting read on the teaweed. While I'm still of the traditional plow and plant method, I'm very impressed with how all of this is shaking out for you. How's your throw and mow garden doing? Haven't seen any pics of that lately but perhaps I overlooked them.

Thanks 3FF.....I'll take some pics of my maters later this afternoon and post them. They're doing great. Matter of fact, I have some cherry tomatoes that need picking now. I got attacked on my squash by the squash borers. I only had a few plants and the bastards nearly got them all. That was a brand new bed that really wasn't ready to plant yet. I don't know if that played a role in it or if it was just my turn to get hammered by them.

Here’s my cherry tomato. If you look close you can see how I trained the original plant to run along the star shaped pattern of the 1st scaffolds and then grow upshoot braches from there.



My regular maters I’ve let grow natural and not pinched any suckers. The result is that I’m growing mater bushes instead of traditional looking plants. They are short and thick right now… just about to start picking some soon. Several varieties from Cherokee Purple, to lemon yellow, to an orange variety I don’t recall the name, to traditional better boys. I removed the black landscape fabric a few days ago. The heat lately has been so intense that I think it was too much for them. I’m not really irrigating them though I need to rig up something as dry as we’ve been. I’ve watered them with the hose and thumb a couple times just to keep them from suffering.





Some pickles…..or soon to be pickles. Behind that is some feed corn from Academy I broadcast for chits and giggles. I got it WAYYYY too thick. I wasn’t using the space and figured I’d grow a few ears of some feed corn just for the hell of it. I’ll probably just use it for organic matter and plant my squash back in this bed next year…..and as I post this the bottom just fell out. Rain baby rain!!!!!

Still a lot more grass in the mix than I’d like but pleased by plant color/health none the less. It's a battle right now between the grass and broadleafs over who is going to dominate the canopy. Even after going through a decent dry spell, the field is still in good shape. There’s actually 15-20 different plant species growing in the field but everything pretty much just blends together. I should produce plenty of healthy biomass by the end of summer.

I’ve started Shelby on some short liver drags. She’s 10 weeks old so I’m not doing anything complicated. Just a simple 50 yard drag. This is her 3rd one I’ve done. All I’m wanting to do right now is get her excited about it and flip switches in her brain. She’s seems to be very eager to track. Check her out.

Awesome video CNC! Her treat is the liver at the end so that works well. You can tell she was "seeing" with her nose, amazing.

Thanks!....I hope she's gonna make a good tracking dog. She dang sure likes to use her nose and get after it for such a young pup. I like her drive.

Blum…..I don’t think reaching the Fuyu’s is going to be as big of a problem as we thought. They’re barely half grown and already pulling the limbs to the ground. This is after shedding off a lot of fruit too. I think I’m going to go ahead and pull the trigger this fall and add onto this orchard with a dozen of them. I’ve got another young Giro right next to this one that you can’t see that’s putting on some fruit this year. So far I don’t see much difference in them.

My screening is coming along. I’ve got a little trail made in behind this I use at dark to exit my stands. I also like having the buffer around the perimeter of the field creating a softer edge. I’ve got it established around about 50-60% of the field now. You can see extending into the very back of the field if you look close. Still working on beating back the privet on the other side but about got it whooped finally.

Are there shade tolerant fruit trees that don't require regular pruning? I am horrible at pruning. Once I get to cutting on a tree it's more likely to end up as a 3" stump than something pruned half correctly. Put 4 Sida / teaweed seeds in each of 6 - 4" pots with potting soil and 1 each in 36 peat pods in a grow tray with a kinda terrarium lid, yesterday. Can't wait to see some emerging plantage over the next week or so.

also dropped about 25 seeds along the edge of the woods in the leaf litter then walked on them repeatedly to try for some seed to soil contact. Just to see if a seriously minimalist approach could have any success.

Best options for fruit trees are pears, crabapples, and persimmons.

It’s only been a week or so now…..but you can already start to see a difference in the teaweed that I’ve caged versus the other. See how the plant on the right is still being hammered and the caged one is putting on new growth.

We planted roughly 3 acres of browntop millet two weeks ago.
We sprayed roundup on the field on Wednesday, then spread the seed and bushhogged weeds on Sunday. Kind of quit after roundup but wanted to do in advance of predicted rains. We got 7/8" of rain 4 days later and another 3/4" or so the next day. I checked for the first time exactly one week after planting and saw substantial germination - enough that I think I will get a solid stand. Should know this coming weekend and will post pics.

Day 10 just need another drink. [img:center]http://[/img] [img:center]http://[/img] [img:center]http://[/img]
I spread 1,000 pounds of peletized lime sat and as soon as we get some rain coming gonna throw out 300 pounds of 13-13-13.

That's awesome fellas....