Starting trees on land?

Sounds like you got a good place to be planting rice. Assuming that area stays flooded most of the Spring season.

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r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

I can tell you how we protected our "young" fruit trees from both our herd of goats as well as the deer. We built two (2) fences around each fruit tree. The first was 2 ft from the trunk, the 2nd fence was 2-1/2 ft from the first fence. Both fences were 2" x 4" welded wire 4' tall. We used metal posts, which were easy to get into the ground. Since we have had this fencing, neither goat nor deer have touched our fruit trees.

If our fruit trees were "not" inside our garden area, I would keep the double fencing up until the trees were tall enough so a deer could only reach the bottom leaves. At that time I would wrap as suggested above to keep them from stripping the bark.

(All our fruit trees are "inside" a large fenced garden area and this year we are putting an additional 4 ft wire around the entire garden with only about a foot of it bending toward the inside. When I find out this is keeping the deer away from our garden next year, I will remove the fencing around our fruit trees.)

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I am what I am! Acknowledging this is the beginning; and my growth is yet to end. http://motdaugrnds.com/farmsales ~~~~~ http://motdaugrnds.com

If you check this article about sepp holzer you will see he has a goo that he makes and puts on young trees to keep stuff from nibbling.

Also quite a lot of trees need to be shaded their first year or two or otherwise the sun will cook them. I'm finding that out the hard way here in Kansas. After the 2nd year, they're toughened up enough not to need shading.

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

I think after it cools down, we will go out to the land and do some digging. The entire driveway and house site has sandy soil. The sandy soil scared me, but DH promised to do whatever it took to get the soil good enough for me to garden. Got a friend who does landscaping, so we get all the leaves and grass clipping we could ever ask for. I am sure we will start an extremely large composting area in the fall.

The land slightly slopes downward towards the road. The place where it holds water is along the street front. Once we get some good rain I can see better if water is standing in the ditch and along the first 10 or 15 ft of the land where the ruts have been left.

I do plan on having a few goats. I think the one of the previous owners had goats or sheep, there is several acres fenced with a very small shelter. I plan on leaving it the way it is and using it the best I can.

Oh, and the land already has a few dozen 55 gal drums on it (the only down side is I don't know what was in the drums). The well is on the top corner of the property, so getting large amounts of water on the other side of the land might present a challenge. Maybe I can get DH to buy a large water container for the back of his work truck.

I already started making my tree wishlist and I can't wait to get started!

I find that trees are much like horses if you can keep them alive the first 3 years you have it made!

If you have sandy soil you might consider growing melons for the market. Watermelons and Cantelopes thrive on sandy soil.

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r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

Take a look at using tree tubes. According to the video the success rate is incredible.
http://www.plantra.com/rd/wildlifetrees.php
I made my own tree tubes from (tyvek) house wrap, sewn on one edge to form a tube and perforated with a hot ice pick. Here is a photo. I made a few to see if they'll work. I'll let you know next season.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40010801@N05/4943407264/