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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Pasture Renovation and Fertility

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  • From: Ute Bohnsack <sustag@eircom.net>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Pasture Renovation and Fertility
  • Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 23:46:00 +0100

FranksFarm@aol.com wrote:
[snip]
>
> The western side consists of 70 acres of bottom land alongside a pristine
> creek that for the most part is a gentle, ever flowing creek about at least
> a
> foot or so until fed by rains when it can get much deeper, and wider and
> become a raging torrent if extremely heavy rains fall in a short period of
> time. Creek just flooded over top of banks, and over fence lines this past
> May 17.02 and dropped tons of debris including numerous downed logs some
> over
> 3' in diameter. Lots of decaying material but it's all caught in fence line
> or simply where dropped in field.
>
> Lord if much of the smaller litter were thinly spread it would probably be a
> great soil enhancer. But the labor to move, cut up or burn all this stuff
> overwhelms me. There's well over a mile of fence involved. I've spent 3 full
> days burning some of it, and it looks as if I've done nothing!
>
> Since much of this debris is on the pasture side of the fence I NEED to do
> something.
[snip]

Have you considered piling all that stuff into 'deadwood windrows'? They
can be used to create new hedgerows with all the benefits hedgerows
give. Takes some years (birds roost, drop seed with faeces), but can
also be speeded up by planting saplings in amongst the debris where they
are sheltered from browsing cows.

As for plantings along the creek I would think willows are a
particularly suitable species.
Willow thrives in wet conditions, is quick growing and has a very high
proportion of root
mass, making it particularly suitable for ground stabilisation. It also
tolerates flooding and willow shoots are easily obtained and planted
(simply stuck in the ground during dormancy).

Just off the top of my head.

Cheers,
Ute

ps Sounds like you got a wonderful place there!




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