Anybody plant wild flowers ....when is the best time to do this .
I have trees planted and thought about planting wildflowers in between .

I've never tried planting them but I think you establish or plant seed in the fall/winter. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I�m working on expanding my field. Actually, I may eventually plant my current field in trees and make this area my food plot. If you look in the left hand side of the pic�.the green you see is my current field that I�m showing in these threads. Most of the field is really in a horrible location for a plot. On top of it being sand�.it�s also on top of a small hill. The rain has currently impeded my progress. Everything in the bottom is too wet to get the tractor down and do much after raining pretty much all day yesterday. I was tired of running a chain saw for a day or two anyways.




This area I�m clearing out holds plenty of moisture and has a much better mix of clay. Plotting here versus on top of that sandy hill will be a major game changer. The foundation you start with makes a HUUUUGE difference. No matter how well I manage that sandy hill�.it only has so much potential because it�s a hill of pure sand. I have a much better situation going on in this bottom.

its ok if you don't just signed up in March of last year and missed a lot of this thread i didn't know if you where going to start it over again

Feel free to ask questions if there's anything specific you're wanting to know. I may start up another thread in a few weeks.

anyone who does throw and mow this summer should just do a progressive thread like this one has been. I will have three clover fields that I'm going to experiment IC peas into standing white clover and red clover fields. I'm curious to see if the IC peas will shade the clover out of it the clover will out compete the IC peas ( depending on how long the deer let them live)

This thread is still very active, so post away on it.

I'm changing it up today from clearing off new plot to putting in some more trees. With the rain we had a couple days ago the ground is nice and moist right now. I'm adding another 25 nuttal oaks. Shout out to "The Wildlife Group". Great folks to deal with if you need trees.




This is what throw n mow is all about in the pic below. The hardest part for many folks is seeing past just "this year" and turning their focus toward long term goals. The black dirt comes from decaying organic matter. In another month or two folks will be asking...."Should I plant this or should I plant that?"......To make that black dirt, first and foremost you have to produce plenty of total biomass no matter what you grow. That should be a main focus for you this summer. The best thing for most folks is going to be to fertilize and lime and allow the native vegetation to produce your biomass. Add clover in the fall and let the field do its thing. Notice the black beginning to streak deeper into the soil profile now past the main line.

I tried throw and mow last fall. Like everybody else the drought kicked the field hard but we had some irrigation and things grew. It can hardly be called a successful stand of plants. Nothing seemed to get very tall but there was a lot of green and hoof prints and poop everywhere. Went yesterday and limed and fertilized and there's still traffic but doesn't seem to be anything but weeds in there. We're talking about just a small plot of 1/4 acre.

I think I am going to rake in some more clover and chicory seeds and see if the rain on Tuesday will help get them going.

Hairy Vetch would probably be a good one to get going this fall......supplier of N. I noticed a bunch sprouting in my field. I threw in a bag of seed into my mix a couple years ago and its still persisting.

My biggest problem now is I know what clover looks like but not much else. The property owner has figs trees and a big muscadine vine next to the field. So I plan to use some fertilizer spikes to help them grow. He's also got chickens and we're getting some dp traps next week to take out the coons we think got his chickens last October. It's getting fun to go out there every few weeks and make little improvements.

I made me some good soil for some new flower beds. You�ll see lots of folks use these principles to make their gardens and flower beds better but not their food plots. With either one we are building soil.

The clover and rye both are really beginning to jump now. We often focus a lot of our attention to summer plots after deer season is over but I think this time of year is one of the most important times for the deer. They have just finished up the rut and many bucks may be in poor shape. Clover is one of the first things to emerge and put on growth high in nutritional value. There's a lot of clover in the field to have not planted any last year. I'm very surprised at how it's done. Once you have a good stand of clover established using this method....you may be able to just leave it out of your seed mix and save a few dollars. I think you could probably at least cut back the rate some or maybe mix in another variety. This is crimson and yuchi arrowleaf growing amongst the rye.

I have 4 of the prettiest stands of white clover and red clover mixed with crimson that I've ever had. the best looking one I have is my throw and mow field on the club. I'll try and take a picture of it this weekend

Awesome!....Post them up.

My clover has slap taken over my best field but the deer and turkeys are still hammering it. Nothing is really over 3-4" tall in the field.

Well I hope in about 2 weeks mine are gonna be blowing up. Got them all fertilized just before the rain, mowed the taller fields and sprayed everything with Arrow to kill the grass. I have been having a growing problem with annual Rye grass of some sort in my plots and finally got up there in time to get it before it seeded out.

Post up the pics!

Field is beginning to take off now. It�ll get tall quick if we stay warm. I�m just gonna leave it alone this spring and let it cycle naturally I think.



Clover and hairy vetch in the understory. Good sources of N for summer forage that will come in later on.