[Danaus29]

I suggest living with it for a year to see where water pools in the spring rainy season, watch where the shade tracks when the trees are leafed out, look for seasonal flowers or plants which you might want to keep, keep an eye out to see what kinds of wildlife share your property, etc.

I know how difficult it is to fight the urge to start planting. But if you place expensive trees/shrubs in places where they struggle you won't gain anything.

Check local sources to see what should be planted when in your area. Take notes and make a list of things you like to eat and when they should be planted. Divide your garden into 4 sections and clear one section for the coming season. Many people are overwhelmed when they start gardening on a huge plot. Start small and expand as you have time.

Use more than one reference to verify the identity of your current plantings. I have seen those apps misidentify a lot of similar looking plants. Mark the plants you want to keep.

It looks like quite the spread. Good luck with your endeavors.

 

[Danaus29]

I definitely understand why that would be a good thing to do, but the whole reasoning behind us moving to the country was to start providing some of our own food ASAP. We seen the way the world is going with the shortages and countries starting to feed the kids bugs in schools and wanted to get ahead of it. Even if we are only growing 5% of what we consume, it's a start.

While nobody truly knows how things will end up in the next few years or even months (WEF), nothing is more important to me than my family and providing for them as best I can. I am willing to go through placement struggles and a bit of wasted money, if necessary.

You do you then. But remember, it's not just wasted money. If your trees and bushes don't flourish and produce you have also wasted the years spent waiting for them to grow and produce.

 

[Danaus29]

It has a lot to do with what you grow as well, there are food crops you can grow in almost any soil under almost any condition and they will flourish.

Maybe in Georgia, not so much where I live. Soggy, cold, clay soil kills a lot of perennial crops. Blackberries and raspberries being noted exceptions. They can and will spread and grow just about anywhere.

What have you grown that can flourish just about anywhere? I'm always looking for easy, perennial food crops.

 

[Danaus29]

I've homesteaded in three states so far TX, OK, and CO from very hot to very high altitude; there is always a way; you just need to be willing to do what it takes. And that may be growing about the ground God made there.

Have you found any food crop plants that could be stuck down just anywhere in all those locations and still survive and produce food?

 

[Danaus29]

Yes, I have, I have been able to grow food in every place I've been to. It just takes some ingenuity and research. Our high-altitude land had almost no topsoil (or any kind of soil) to speak of, was almost all rock, however, we grew right on top of that rock.

I know some plants, that are able to adapt to those conditions, can grow in shallow soil.

My point was that when a person is new to the land where they want to grow crops, they need to take the time to learn what the soil is like and find out what will grow in what they have. You can't just plop an apple tree down in shallow soil and expect it to produce apples for the next 20 years.

There are very few plants, if any, that tolerate ALL soil conditions in ALL locations. One has to do their research if one wants to grow a successful garden or orchard.

 

[Danaus29]

Could you explain this more? I was under the impression that ponds aren't really something that involves government unless they are very large or if you are working with them under some type of program where they help with the dig cost for preservation or whatever. I definitely won't be digging it out myself (mainly because I don't know what I am doing, but also because I don't have the equipment). I would be hiring a company to survey the spot and dig it, while making sure everything is done within the rules.

You will need to contact your state and county zoning and building regulation departments and the Corps of Engineers.

"The best means for constructing a pond is through the Corps of Engineers agricultural-exemption program. The Corps of Engineers administers the permit process, and USDA-NRCS provides agricultural expertise. The Corps of Engineers and USDA-NRCS follow an agency agreement to review and approve agricultural-exempt ponds. Here you are getting the permit based on your agricultural needs for irrigation. This water justification can be for livestock grazing or crops. There is a detailed formula we won’t go into, but you are allowed to store a volume of water based on how many acres of crops you need to irrigate. We get our engineers involved in the NRCS paperwork. Once NRCS concurs with the water budget, then calculations are submitted along with NRCS paperwork to the regional Corps of Engineers office. The process may take a while, but when done correctly, it will be approved."

Build Your Dream Pond – Georgia Outdoor News

gon.com

Just one of many sites about "pond construction in Georgia". Most of my hits were pdf downloads.

If permits are required, no legitimate construction company will touch it without them.

 

[Danaus29]

The EPA sometimes has a problem defining what a navigatable body of water is, as well as wetlands designations.

The EPA doesn't have a problem defining them. If it's on the property of an individual or small farm family it falls under their jurisdiction. If it's on the property belonging to a big company or influential individual it isn't their concern.

 

[Danaus29]

If you are talking about Joseph David Robertson, he was blocking and destroying public lands. Most of the stories claim he dug ditches on his land but these 2 say they were large ponds dug on public lands.

Re: United States of America v. Joseph David Robertson

Antigovernment Pond Builder in Montana Sentenced to Prison

Antigovernment activist sentenced to 18 months in prison for building illegal ponds on public lands. Already, the movement inspired by Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy is sounding alarm.

www.splcenter.org

Cliven Bundy allowed his cattle to illegally graze on public land.

Justice — beginning with Cliven Bundy – The Nevada Independent

Bundy has promised the Biden administration a reprise of the 2014 standoff if they try to take his trespassing cows again — or enforce the penalties that the courts have ordered him to pay. So what should the Biden administration do about this?

thenevadaindependent.com

David Allen Phillips went beyond what his permit allowed and caused a stream to run dry. That stream was vital to the people downstream from Phillips's property.

'This was a scary-looking property. He dug everything up'

Convicted in 2001 for destroying wetlands and diverting a creek, Montana developer David Allen Phillips escaped from prison and spent four years on the lam.

www.eenews.net

 

[Danaus29]

@danielkleach, I've seen so many people try to grow huge gardens that they have no time or energy to care for. I've done it myself. When you can't keep up with the planting, weeding, harvest and preserving you will get discouraged. When a poorly placed tree fails to thrive or gets blown over by the wind before you get a harvest you get discouraged.

There are many ways to get yourself prepared without trying to plant a whole orchard or huge garden immediately.

1) Learn to cook from scratch. Make pie crust, make cookies or cake without a mix. Experiment with seasonings and spices to give your home cooking something extra tasty so you prefer it over fast food.

2) Set up a pantry for canned goods and dry foods. Be sure to research ways to keep bugs out of beans, rice and flour. You might not be able to grow enough of those foods to satisfy your needs but you can buy them and store them for future use.

3) Learn how to preserve food. Canning is pretty easy once you learn the method. Dehydrating works great for some foods and many herbs. Find ways to preserve foods so they don't need to be refrigerated or frozen.

4) Take notice of foods you like. Learn the cultivation requirements of those plants. Try new fruits and vegetables from the grocery store to see if you like them before you buy the plants. Asparagus is easy to grow but it's not worth the effort if no one wants to eat it.

5) Try growing some plants in containers. Some things will grow better in containers than in your native soil. I can never get good peppers from my garden. Potted peppers do very well for me.

6) Get a seed starting area set up. It's often easier to set out plants than tiny seeds. Make sure you have enough lighting for your little plants. Insufficient lighting produces weak plants that won't survive outdoors. Learn how to introduce indoor grown seedlings to the outdoors, a process called "hardening off".

7) Tools are your second most important investment. Buy good, sturdy tools that will last many years. Some of my tools have been in use for over 100 years. Learn how to store and care for your tools. Good tools quickly become worthless if not cared for. A potting bench is essential if you start a lot of plants from seed. You should also learn simple maintenance of your power tools.

8) Learn your seasons. When is your typical first and last frost? Do you have a season where it rains every day? Do you have a season where you get no rain and you have to water plants? Is there a time when mosquitoes and ticks are more active than other times? Is there a season where slugs, snails, crickets or other little critters are most active in your area?

9) Learn how to inventory and rotate your supplies. Learn how to keep your pantry stocked. Learn to constantly compare prices and watch for sales of things you can't grow. Learn how to shop for produce that is in season. Learn where the local farmer's markets are located.

Take notes, copy recipes, make a record of things that work and things that don't. Make a master list of what to plant and when to plant it specific to your location. Learn how to rotate crops and keep a record if what you planted and where you planted it. Learn what varieties of vegetables your family likes and what they don't.

All of this process takes TIME and patience. Even if you are not growing all your own food within a couple years, you will be ahead of most people if you have enough food to get by for 3 months. Buying food from the grocery store does not make you a failure, it makes you prepared.

 

[Danaus29]

After reading about that cold spell in Texas last year, I would get some warm blankets to have on hand too. They won't help in the garden but will keep you warm if the weather turns cold and the power goes out.

 

[Danaus29]

The brush in the garden needs to be removed before you put a tarp over the soil. When your growing season starts the brush will push through a tightly laid tarp and will displace a loose one. After removing the brush, mowing the area before laying down tarps is sufficient.

Your best place to site a compost pile is right in the garden. I suggest you get a book titled Compost This Book. It covers all kinds of compost piles, methods and containment for compost piles. You can get as fancy as a bin or as laid back as just a pile. Some people dig compost pits and move to another spot when one gets filled.

You should get the sturdiest fencing you can find. Chicken wire, rabbit fence, welded wire and similar cheap materials don't last long. I was given a few rolls of chain link fence and have that around my gardens. I didn't get it stretched tight enough so it sags in places and one garden needs to be completely refenced, but it works pretty well to define the garden area. Critters will find a way in regardless of what you use. Raccoons, squirrel and possums climb. Groundhogs, armadillos and skunk will dig under. Chipmunks and baby rabbits just slip through. About the only thing the fence keeps out is grown rabbits and deer. It keeps deer out of only the small gardens.

If your temperature drops below freezing you will not be able to grow Cavendish bananas.

Banana | Cavendish | CC GROW

www.phytotheca.com

 

[Danaus29]

Thank you for the feedback. Glad to hear mowing after brush removal is good enough. I'm guessing the thicker the tarps the better?

I will look into that book. Composting is something I haven't really looked into much as of yet.

I was planning to reinforce the existing fencing with chicken wire along the bottom 18 inches or so (with like 6 inches buried to help with the diggers), and additional lines of barbed wire above the existing; along with strands of electric. Do you think that would be sufficient enough for now? Or should I go through the pain of replacing it all with chain link?

That's unfortunate about the bananas. I know the temperatures in my area are pretty mild in the winter, but from looking at the history it does drop below freezing at times. January is on average the coldest month with an average low of 35F. So it's not like it is below freezing a majority of the time, but how often would the freezing temps need to happen to kill the trees?

Yes, the thicker the tarp the better it would be at blocking light and lasting more than a couple months. The blue tarps fall apart within a year leaving you with blue strands of plastic that are impossible to clean up completely.

Composting helps you turn vegetable, lawn and garden waste into a crumbly material that is full of nutrients that help feed your garden. Compost is recycled and reused organic material.

If your current fence is in good shape and the posts are sturdy it would be better to keep what you have. I think I would reinforce it with 3 feet tall chicken wire with the bottom 12 or so inches laid flat on the ground instead of being buried. With the wire laid out flat it does a better job of keeping diggers out. Grass will grow through it and you can mow over the flat part. Plus it's a lot less work. I used chain link because it was free.

Barbed wire is a pain to work with and really does a poor job of discouraging garden raiders. It keeps cattle contained but does not keep deer or coyotes out. It has no use in keeping smaller fence climbers out of a garden. I have read that electric fence combined with a regular fence keeps deer out but I haven't tested that. Supposedly putting an electric fence a couple feet away from the regular fence prevents deer from jumping over. My grandpa kept raccoons out of his sweet corn patch with 2 strands of electric fence. One strand was about 8 inches off the ground, the other was maybe 18 inches off the ground. He just stepped over it when he wanted to pick the corn.

Bananas, if the ground doesn't freeze your plants should survive. But the top part has to grow for several years before it can produce fruit. Freezing temperatures will kill the top but not the root. Bananas are really a perennial that grows from a rhizome, much like Bearded iris. I'm not real sure how much cold a Cavendish can take. I don't know anyone who has grown one here and tested it's cold tolerance.

 

[Danaus29]

Good advice about using traps and lead against some critters, provided that you are allowed to shoot on your property. Whatever you do, if you decide to start trapping nuisance critters, do NOT transport and release them elsewhere! Please don't make them someone else's problem. Do what is necessary to eliminate your problem small critters. Some critters can be "harvested" only during hunting season. Check your local nuisance wildlife and hunting laws to see what they allow. Some people call it cruel but often a tub or 55 gallon drum of water can be your best quiet solution.

@B. White, the censoring software won't allow the use of the word "c00n". You have to use zeros or put "ra" in front of it. Crazy but that's the program.

 

[Danaus29]

In my experience, outdoor cats are good only for clearing out rabbits. We had barn cats on the farm which did keep the barn rodent population in check. But that's a lot different than having a free range cat trying to control free range mice.

My neighbor's dog hates moles and will dig to China trying to catch one. There are dogs all around me but none of them go after the multitude of raccoons here. Nothing catches the stupid squirrels, not even the hawks that are supposed to eat the rodents.

I've got a couple destructive squirrels running around here now. Crock pot squirrel and dressing (not stuffing) sounds pretty good.

 

[Danaus29]

And, how do you stuff an undressed squirrel?

You can't stuff them. That's why you have to dress them.

But seriously, cook the squirrel until tender, debone and chop the meat, put the meat and some cooking broth into a pot adding as much water as needed in the directions for boxed stuffing mix, add a couple tablespoons of bacon grease or butter. Then follow the instructions on the box of stuffing. It's better with 1/4 pound chopped mushrooms and a handful of finely chopped onion and a minced clove of garlic. I prefer to fry to onion, mushroom and garlic until tender, with some bacon grease in the pot before adding the meat and broth.

 

[Danaus29]

My neighbor kept deer out of her garden with 3 strands of hot wire. A friend of mine has 5 strands, the double fence and a dog. Deer still get into the buffet. I think in a lot of cases you have to find what works through trial and error. If I can find the $$$ and time for it, I may put some orange construction fence around the big garden next year.

 

[Danaus29]

Clear plastic is used to solarize the soil.

How To Solarize Your Garden Beds – The Dallas Garden School

Learn solarization step by step. How to solarize your garden beds to kills pests and disease in the soil with the help of our blazing Texas sun.

thedallasgarden.com

Tarps are used to kill the existing plants, usually done before working a garden area.

As for the compost, I would wait until you have tilled the soil once. Till, add compost, till again. But I live in Ohio with cold winters and heavy clay soil. YMMV

 

[Danaus29]

Can you even buy canvas tarps anymore?

My favorite way to kill grass is using large sheets of cardboard. But it takes a lot of material to hold large sheets of cardboard in place. The benefit is that you can till cardboard into the soil.

 

[Danaus29]

In my experience, tarps work to kill grass. They don't work on shrubs, brambles, ground ivy, vines or thistles. I did say grass in my post.

One big drawback to using a tarp, which no one ever mentions, is the critters that hide underneath. We don't have venomous snakes here so snakes under a tarp is not a concern. I have moved a lot of flat material off the ground and found snakes underneath. You'll also find vole and shrew tunnels, worms, slugs, snails, centipedes and hundreds of other little creepy crawlies including big spiders. I avoid using non compostable material to kill grass because of the critters it attracts. The same critters will hide underneath cardboard, until it breaks down. Since you don't remove it, you don't have to worry about what's underneath. UNLESS you have to worry about venomous snakes, maybe scorpions. We don't have big scorpions ether, just little bitty harmless to people scorpions.

I have never gardened in sandy soil. My experience is with clay and loam and all the variables in between. Clay is hard to break up with a tiller. Even a heavy duty tiller will not kill lawn grass enough for you to be able to plant lettuce in a new garden. Here you always have to kill the grass in a new garden or it will come back from the roots.

 

[Danaus29]

Yup...
I always tell people that a tiller is useless until you get the soil broken up... Dig the soil... don't need a tiller.
Tiller on compacted soil just bounces up and down... It will beat you to death...

I bought a heavy duty, rear tine tiller just to use on my hard clay soil. We used it to make a garden out of lawn in November, several years ago. Despite being tilled and having organic material worked into it for about 15 years there are still spots where it beats us up pretty bad. And I still had to use a shovel to dig trenches so I could plant garlic.