New Orchard

[Michaelangelica]

Welcome Moo,
i hope you don't have any animals with unconventional sexuality having surrogate babies there in the Deep North?

A herbal Ley, what a great idea. I have never heard of it.

What is a Herbal Ley?

A herbal ley is defined by some experts as a thickly planted almost a wild, jungle like area. Which has a wide variety of beneficial plants, that include:

* Plant’s that fix nitrogen
* Plants that are drought tolerant
* Plants that are tolerant of low moisture levels
* Plants that have a high mineral content

With a herbal ley in each paddock, you have the ability to provide a huge variety of plants in one area, which will raise healthy animals and enrich your soils at the same time.

http://2-women-on-2-acres.com/what-is-a-herbal-ley/
Do you just buy wholesale seed and broadcast it? Any establishment tips?

Wouldn't geese in the orchard eat the grass?

I was amazed to see in the North of the South island of NZ hundreds of acres of wild thyme growing in an area the locals called a desert.
It surprised me no one was harvesting it commercially. Eco?

[moo2u2]

Hi My home made chook mix depends on the seasons and is fed with little variation to the cows, pigs, sheep, ducks and chooks. I buy my grain (corn, barley, wheat and sorgum from local farmers and crack it in a grinder/cracker attached to my milking machines. I feed only a little corn in summer, more in winter and not much sorgum. Also not much wheat in the cow/sheep or pig mix as too much is poisonous to these animals.
To the cracked grain I add Seaweed Meal/Kelp, Natra-min mineral powder (i think it may be called Superior now), A little sulpher powder (our soil is lacking in sulpher and it helps keep parasites, lice etc at bay), Full Fat soya bean meal for higher protein. For the chooks, ducks and pigs I mix in milk from the cows. This prevents waste, they eat it all and it helps prevent problems with mice and rats as there is none left on the ground to encourage them. I do mix a tiny amount of Pig Concentrate in for the pigs and Dairy Concentrate for the cows. I couldn't tell you exact amounts as I just do it by the handful depending on how many animals but it is important to get it right so you are not giving them too much of one thing. I had a soil test done so I knew what was lacking in my soil. The best investment I ever made however it is a long slow expensive process to try and get the soil back to good health.

[eco4560]

Thanks Moo. So much to learn still..... I've not yet knocked up a full 12 months as a chook keeper yet.

[Aaronj]

I worked for 4 months with a farm forester in NSW, he wasn't growing fruit trees, but many different kinds of timber, nuts and oaks inoculated with black truffle. He insisted on working the soil into excellent condition before planting. Saying that the 1-5 years spent on getting the soil into proper health made up for it 10 years later because the trees grew faster, were healthier, disease and parasite resistant, needed no irrigation and were higher producing.

His site had been seriously compacted, overgrazed with dairy and then beef cows and then used to grow oats until it was abandoned because it would no longer produce anything. It became severely infested with blackberry and scotch broom which he says also contributed to the regeneration of the soil. He slashed everything down, and did consecutive passes over several months with a Yeomans style plow. He introduced a herbal lay which he had developed specifically for his area, and periodically ran goats and sheep to graze down the broom and blackberry that came back. Prior to planting he deep ripped again.

I have never seen soil in as good a condition as his was. Probably 12-15 inches of deep black topsoil, it was truly amazing. We could plant trees with a small hand trowel. In the middle of the drought (this was in the vicinity of Canberra) , his soil was moist and full of worms. The neighbors place looked like a desert.

After planting we put individual tree guards up around each tree, because he was going to make one application of Roundup in the spring when the grass came in. He used a CDA micro sprayer with extremely low concentration of Roundup directly around the tree only. The rest of the area could be slashed with a light weight (to avoid further compaction) Carrero tractor . The grass he said was the major killer of seedling trees and he didn't have the time to weed each tree, or afford mulch to stop the grass. (20-40 acres planted at a time.) He never used Roundup again after that first application, and the soil under his forest was still rich, full of worms, uncompacted and healthy.

Whether you use this entire method or not, deep ripping is essential if your land has been grazed by cattle, or plowed for crops. Regardless, a compaction test is easy. There are no definite rules, but from what I have heard, roots of most plants can not penetrate if the compaction is above 300PSI. I have see people plant into soils where the compaction measured 900-1000 PSI, the trees sit there and never get big.

best of luck
A

[moo2u2]

Thanks very much for the information, I am now thinking very carefully and won't rush in and plant the orchard. I need to work at getting the soil to a reasonable stage before I plant them. I think you are right, if the soil is not prepared properely, I will end up with disappointment as the trees won't do well. There are no worms in our soil anymore and I guess that says it all!. Have a great day, Judy