Working on Reclaiming Agriculture Land

That was my point in lot of postings that too many " PREPERS" romanticizing pioneers work.When I bought my bush first think I bought is old full size tractor , saw mill and old heavy duty old tools.After the basic work was finish I sold my tractor and bought a four wheeler.Then after ground work was ready I did my house ,barns,shop ats. the old fashion way(hard labor).It worked out beautiful.
Good luck Henry

What are you doing with the old vines? They are great for weaving.

Sadly, many of the vines have rotted right out and are not salvageable. But the ones I am finding, I'm gathering up and saving them for the kids and wife to use in crafts like Christmas door wreaths and things like that.

It always takes longer to do things then you think, I drool when I watch folks be able to use machines in terms of building hugelbeds, or putting in posts and the list goes on, but I will say one thing for doing it by hand, and now thankfully draft power, you truly do learn how to do these things and how they would need to be done in the push come shove, and that knowledge and information is at least to me priceless.

That was my point in lot of postings that too many " PREPERS" romanticizing pioneers work.When I bought my bush first think I bought is old full size tractor , saw mill and old heavy duty old tools.After the basic work was finish I sold my tractor and bought a four wheeler.Then after ground work was ready I did my house ,barns,shop ats. the old fashion way(hard labor).It worked out beautiful.
Good luck Henry

agree and disagree.

i dug my garden this year by hand, 700sp feet of earth that had never been turned, wild plants/flowers/grass, some small trees. it was a LOT of work, it's not big enough to sustain a family,and anything larger in one season i'd use machines if able, but LOVED the time i was out there, i spent my most "relaxing" hours digging that garden, planting it, watering and growing it. . . it was a great job. i have over 1000sq ft of growing space ready now, with another 100sq ft of raised beds to be filled. i'm also doing another 200-500 sq feet of no dig beds (depending on tree roots and shade) for next year. . .

if i NEEDED THIS TO LIVE, work would have to go faster, if i want peace of mind, a work out and something to feel good about, i'd do more this way. ( my situations, and jobs were much different then RWS so i'm not comparing anything to that!!! but it was romantic for me bro although i have a elbow injury for too much improper use of the spade!!!)

Sorry body I do all those things by hand (gardening ,building Atc.) and really enjoying it.I am talking major.I saw guy trying dig a basement hole by hand, or trying cut fire wood for whole winter by hand.(I know it is possible but why to kill myself before I have to)Although I mixed concrete for my basement floor with a small mixer and wheelbarrow it by hand but I was much younger.
henry

I think I was posting in frustration at the speed of progress I'm having - I have about a quarter acre to work on now, with like 21 1/2 to go.
Gotta say, you folks posting has given me some cause to view this in a slightly different light. I think I will lessen the pace a bit and smell some dirt being turned 🙂

I have to ask, Entropy, about the no dig beds you mention. What's that about? You just dig a hole, pop in a transplant and walk away? I have to say, I'm a bit intrigued by this.

My beds are going to be mounded-raised. I first thought about square foot gardening...but I'm questioning that now, as there's going to be so much room. I measured this morning the already cleared area and it's 230' x 60' now. So having been told that seed packets hold a 15' row of seeds all told, I can go the row method as well. Any opinions on that?
My father-in-law planted some blueberries in the area I cleared (they forgot they were in there) and I've found them and cleared around them. They are six feet tall and they currently feed the birds. I've also identified the woody brush I'm clearing as Serviceberry. It's thick and about 6'-8' tall.
I plan on keeping some of the cleared area as it is - acidic - for the blueberries and other berries I'm going to plant for a berry patch. I'm going to put some grape vines back in as well at some point for fresh fruit, raisins maybe and wine. The rest of it I'm going to put some lime on and plant some vegetables, as my skills and abilities allow.
In the spring, I'm going to get a pair of weaner pigs and fence them in with some electric fence. I'll learn to raise a pair, but I have my eye on raising up to 10 - for my freezer and some close friends and family, and perhaps to sell 5 or so. I want to see if I actually like raising them first though.

Geez. Starting to sound like I'm on a hobby farm forum.

Serviceberry as in Saskatoon's? because if that is the case, they are very much useable, in fact many of us think they are as good or even better then the blueberry depending on where you are raised in the country 🙂

In regards to planting, may I recommend considering getting this book, I really like it,

Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times, by Steve Solman.. While I would wimper if I suddenly lost a ton of my gardening books, if I had to only take one, it would be my own homemade "farm book" (after all that's why I tracked and created them) but if it was a bought one, this one would be at the top of the list..

Enjoy learning about your piggies, I currently have a lovely litter of eight little (for now) large blacks piglets in the big barn, just like dogs, while some things are common, the type of breed and how it was raised does make a difference in temperment etc.

Huh. Yeah, having looked it up closer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanchier_alnifolia that's exactly what it is. I've never seen the berries go to blue just various shades of purple, however, as there's always birds - sometimes clouds of them - in the bush. I have a good 10-14 acres of this stuff, thick enough in most spots you have to push through them with no small effort to get past them. I think I should keep some of it and try it out if I can get to the berries before the birds get them.

Thanks for the suggestion on the book. Turns out, I have that in pdf (I've got a bunch of pdf books...more then I can read in a reasonable amount of time and in several subjects). I'll bump it to the top of the reading list.

Your raising the breed I'm looking at. I'm having trouble finding them where I am though. I'm particularly looking for a breed or cross that I can leave on pasture - well, somewhat cleared areas that I want to make into pasture. I want them to rip it all up and I'll seed it when I move them off, but I'll be feeding them ration feed (to start). I've got a good sized pole barn full of Dorset polled sheep and hay and the front has the tractors parked when not used.
I've looked at kill, cut and wrap at a local business to me and they charge extra because of the black skin (extra effort in de-hairing I'm told, makes sense). Do you send yours out? If so, do you get charged extra?

The berries don't go black, shades of purple is right, but you want them to not have hints of red if possable in them, you can use them the same way as blueberries, they can be canned, dried, made into fruit leather, baked in pies, they rock, and yes the birds love them!, might need to get a farm cat or two to help in the garden and or bird netting for a few tree's.

Assuming that the tree's have not been picked for years if at all, older tree's tend to give bigger berries typically, but small or big, you will get better crops after a few season's of steady picking, by that, I mean that while it may be easier to do a walk along pick on the tree's taking the select only, and you can do that with the size of the land you are talking about for sure for a number of it, but also pick out your good "keeper" ones and pick them right down, even if you are just striping them of small ones to the ground to do it, they will produce less but bigger over the next couple years till they settled down into their average size.

Enjoy the book, it has a ton of info and need re-reading a number of times over the winter and while you can't do this in PDF format, I use post it notes with comments out the top and sides, so that when I come to doing something, and I know that I had something to try, I can find the books and sections more easily.

As for the pigs, yes I send them out, no I don't pay extra for the skin color, its a selling point for the farm gate sales and they don't have any more hair then the others do, if they wanted to really take down the black skin I can see their point but myself and my buyers expect the black or red (depending on what I was raising back when I was buying weaners)

Now finding a place that will do colored turkeys/ducks that is a different matter, they want white birds and either will charge extra for color or won't do them period.

Wow. That's so strange how two different areas can do the same thing, but with different animals.

My processing facility charges more for dark skinned pork, because they say after de-hairing them by machine they have to go back over them to make sure they are completely de-haired. They don't skin them. So, I'd be paying a more for the labour of extra handling. But they don't have any policy for other animals.

I'm very interested in both the blacks and reds (Durocs?). As far as I've come across in my area, whites are barn rejects. They are cheap, but all the ones I've gone to look at had runny eyes or noses or just looked off somehow. I want to avoid bringing something on the farm. It's not even seen sprays or anything in like 30 years.