I’ve had my eye on this oak tree behind the chicken coop. Just in the past few weeks I’ve noticed plenty of little tiny oak seedlings that have sprouted around this particular tree.
We’re pretty lucky to have a lot of big mature oak trees around the house. I like the shade and (eventual) firewood that they provide, and the pigs love the acorns. Actually, I love the acorns too. Free pig food, who wouldn’t love that?
Anyway, the mature oaks are great, but there is a distinct lack of young oak trees coming up to (eventually) replace the mature trees. There are plenty of (near worthless) soft maples and an almost insurmountable number of invasive buckthorn trees. It’s clear that a little oak-tree management is in order, for the pigs and us. Eventually.
Dig around the oak seedling.
Dig down some more.
Have you ever heard that “there’s as much tree below the ground as there is above ground”?
I’m calling BS on that. These oak seedlings are scarcely 4″ tall, but they all have a tap-root that goes down at least 2′. That’s way more tree below ground. Enough that I gave up transferring entire trees into buckets after the third one.
The rest of the trees were dug up as bare-root saplings. That went much faster, just a few strategic prys with the shovel, and you can pull up a tree.
I spent over an hour digging up trees I ended up with about 20-25 trees. The local soil & water conservation district just released their tree order form for the next spring. At $40.75 for a bundle (25) oak trees, I just made $40/hour. Not bad.
I may never live to see it, but eventually we’ll have this farm covered in trees that produce tons of free wildlife and livestock feed.
I think you can live to see it Andrew, most oak trees actually grow pretty fast and you can have acorns in a little as 10 years. Glad to see you doing this.
You will see it Andrew, I planted some oaks and spruce trees when my kids were little and now they are big beautiful trees! Keep it up, you will be glad you did!