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[Robert Walton <waltonrp AT gmail.com>]

I'm planting some trees. I've got one small area that is a lane. It's
got some space on the side of the lane maybe 100' long. I plowed up 4"
wide strips on either side of the lane (back aways from the lane) and
planted pecan and black walnut seeds every 3 paces, to be thinned
later. That's assuming they sprout ok.

Another area was eroded years ago and someone dumped fill in the
eroded area and let trees grow up around it. The trees are decent
size, but the fill dirt is still sitting there in piles. It's ugly. I
got up in there with the tractor and leveled off the piles of dirt and
then planted back walnut, pecan and acorns all over. The area in the
center where the piles were was over grown with vines and briers.
They'd dumped the dirt on sapling trees and it really deformed them so
they were growing crooked, etc. Took the goats 2 years to open it up.
It's not eroding now, so I hope these seeds come up. The area does get
decent light.

I've got a couple areas in the big pasture that want to erode. I'm
thinking about planting rows of trees in the bottom areas that water
runs toward to create a natural division and hold the soil. I want to
plant something otherwise useful. I'm thinking about black locust. I
don't have any locust on the place, but it grows nearby. It's supposed
to be fast to grow. It is a great honey plant. Also rot resistant and
good firewood. Once I get some going it can be propagated easily. I've
read that it's invasive, but my goats would take care of any coming up
in the pasture.

Anyone have any thoughts on black locust?

Rob - Va