Pasture Development: Learning From Last Years Mistakes

Last fall we began the process of clearing the brush and timber off of the nearly twenty acres that Beth and I purchased for the use of our program. As recently as 15 years ago most of it was open fescue and clover pasture. Hundreds of mimosa trees, thousands of ash and sweet gum trees joined about five acres of pines. Last fall I worked very hard and along with the work of our program volunteers we cut down thousands of small trees and used many of them to build a pole and rail fence .64 miles long.

In early spring I put about a dozen horses in the enclosure. The horses loved the tender weeds, browse, and fescue that popped up. They fattened and were about as happy as horses get. But when the weather got hotter and dryer the browse and weeds lost their appeal.

I purposely coppiced the hardwoods to create tender forage for the livestock. At the time I did not know mimosa to be anything but a prolific ornamental tree. I did not know it was a legume. Its nitrogen fixing properties created areas of super soil. In those areas the ground cover was lush and blue green. It was also home to the largest concentrations of woodcocks that I have ever seen.

At the time I did not know why the birds clustered there. Of course this super soil was loaded with earth worms which attracted the long beaked birds.

My mistake was in not running enough electric wire to puts the goats in with the horses. The goats would have managed the browse and erased the honey suckle. This week I hope to run enough hot wire to move the goats into the New Land.

The pictures above came from the mimosa grove as we recleared it on December 23. The super soil caused all of the coppiced stumps to grow beyond my imagination. Some of the new growth was over 15 feet tall.

We are pruning back last summer's growth and removing some of the logs from last years cutting. That that is not used for fencing will be firewood. A few of the brush piles will be left in place for wild life habitat. Most of it is being chipped on site. Those wood chips will be raked out in a very thin layer to bolster the soil's fertility.

Had I put the goats in last winter and if I had a chipper last summer I would not have to re do much of this work. That does not bother me as much as it might sound. I am learning as I go along.

Maybe some of you will be able to skip a mistake by reading about the mistakes that I have made.