Tree Planting, BH Mounted Roto-Tiller......??

[forgeblast]

When I did my crep planting, I first sprayed a 15x15 grid using round up. I just planted in the middle. It was all dug by hand. The seedlings using a dibble bar, the larger ones shovel and pick. Since it was a spring planting, before i recieved the larger trees (about 60 holes total) i pre dug the holes, and then when the trees came just put them in and covered them over.
If its deer edible i would tree tube them. I like the tubex over the blue-ex. the tubex are rigid, and strong. the blue-ex are recycled xray films(no pics on them) with a plastic outer covering.
The tubes will also help protect the trees from voles.
I had some 2' trees grow to the top and out of a 5' tube (which is recommended with heavy deer pops).
This year and next year (2 full years) i will spray a good sized circle around the trees with round up, to keep the vegatation down and keep the voles away. after two years, i just have to spray whats on the weed list. I posted a thread in rural living about it if you need people to buy trees from or need more info.
its really nice when they take off.

 

[Redneck in training]

When I did my crep planting, I first sprayed a 15x15 grid using round up. I just planted in the middle. It was all dug by hand. The seedlings using a dibble bar, the larger ones shovel and pick. Since it was a spring planting, before i recieved the larger trees (about 60 holes total) i pre dug the holes, and then when the trees came just put them in and covered them over.
If its deer edible i would tree tube them. I like the tubex over the blue-ex. the tubex are rigid, and strong. the blue-ex are recycled xray films(no pics on them) with a plastic outer covering.
The tubes will also help protect the trees from voles.
I had some 2' trees grow to the top and out of a 5' tube (which is recommended with heavy deer pops).
This year and next year (2 full years) i will spray a good sized circle around the trees with round up, to keep the vegatation down and keep the voles away. after two years, i just have to spray whats on the weed list. I posted a thread in rural living about it if you need people to buy trees from or need more info.
its really nice when they take off.

We don't tube the trees because we have too many of them planted. Perhaps two thousand. But I built about a mile of an electric fence 6ft tall with five strings. One of the top string is on a fiberglass cantilver sticking about 4 ft horizontally. It makes it more difficult for the dreer to jump the fence without being zapped. So far we had only small damage. The deer tried to jump because I found the fence damaged in several places but apparently always got tangled in the lines and hit.
We also round up around the trees. I cut a bottom from a bucket that we put on the small trees to protect them from spraying. Then we mulch about 2 ft around them.
To protect small oaks from being chewed by rabbits and rodents in the winter I put several owl perches near the trees. The perch is just pole about 10 to 12 ft tall sometimes with a T on the top. The owl(s) decimated the rabitt and rodent population to almost zero before winter starts.

 

[forgeblast]

I like that owl perch idea. I will have to make some. If i didnt have the tubes i would use the bucket to spray also.
Nice on the fencing, I have a 7' high fence around my orchard, and I found a baby deer in there must have been days if not hours old, it crawled inbetween the 4x5 panels and was eating apple branches.
In the winter time they push the fence also, but other then that little one we have been lucky.