Winter means planting and more progress

I waved goodby to the Bayliner last month.  Two nice gentlemen from Hoquiam Grays Harbor came and took her away. They will fix her up and give her to a good friend who lives on a lake in Eastern WA.  They were pleased with her condition and happy to get the trailer too.  That's a big step toward clearing out the barn allowing us to fix it up to better arrange our farming equipment and also receive all the stuff we have been storing in the house.  We are getting closer to getting our clearing and grading and building permit to renovate the cottage.

We went to WACD Plant Materials Center to pick up 100 big leaf maple seedlings.  We hired Jenny Conrad and Pat Beurskens to help us get them in the ground.  The four of us managed it in about 3 hours.  We now have a plantation per our management plan, in the back near our western wetland.  The funny yellow mesh is called Tiller Net, plant protection that seems like it will be useful in protecting most all of our work against the voracious deer that roam the property.

We also now have an enclosed nursery and a good start on the enclosed garden.  Most of the material for the enclosures we have salvaged from fence, wire and treated poles found in the barn or on the property.  We finished the nursery just in time.  25 bare-root high bush cranberry plants arrived to be potted until we plant them next fall after our driveway to the top of the property is in.   I potted the plants during a driving snow storm from the relative comfort of our barn.

Here the pots are heeled-in in the nursery to protect them from the freezing weather and the deer.

 

Four black walnut trees arrived with the cranberry plants.  After finishing with the cranberry, I planted them in back with the big leaf maple. In March we plant 300 more western redcedar, 100 Sitka spruce and 100 western hemlock.  Next Fall/Winter we'll plant more trees in keeping with our management plan.

Dale