Tree Planting
Following the grass planting on Friday night, we planted 1,300 trees on Saturday. Read that again, One Thousand, Three Hundred TREES.
I ordered the seedlings from Jasper-Pulaski and they cost about $550. That's cheap! I got 100 black walnut; 200 tulip; 200 shingle oak; 200 river birch; 200 black gum; 100 shagbark hickory; and 300 white pine trees. They were already out of Norway Spruce or I would have put some of those out.
I rented the tree planter from the Madison County S&W division. I had to drive to Anderson to pick it up (3 hour round trip). Fortunately it was on a trailer and not bad to haul. It cost me $50 to rent - cheap!
We probably spent an hour trying to rig the Deere to hold up the tree planter - it is one heavy dude and we couldn't get the plow off the ground. Finally we did, but it was SO back loaded that the front tires would come off the ground. You had to go REAL SLOW in order to make any turns.
The way this thing works is that a single bottom plow cuts a furrow, and the riders on the back drop a tree in the groove. Then two wheels at the back close up the groove. Pretty nifty.
Again it took us about 3 hours to plant 1,300 trees. That does not include our lunch break or filling the tractor up with gas - which we did 3 times. All told we burnt up about 18 gallons of gasoline.
For comparison, Lahrman's were planting corn and they were able to plant 40 acres before we even got all our grass down. Then again, the amount spent on diesel fuel for their tractor could probably buy our entire set-up.
Nick, Alex, and Kathy were the planters. I was the tractor driver. And Dad was the gator operator who resupplied us with trees and planted marker flags.
Get this, the tractor liked to jump out of gear about every 20 yards or so. Thus, the tree planters had to be on guard because they were going to lurch. Hold on tight kids!
So here we are on a 1946 John Deere B tractor with 18 horses of putt-putt and we BARELY could pull the planter.
We joined the two woods on our properties - Dad's with mine - about 1,000 trees. The rest went along the N side of my woods, in my woods, and along the S side of my yard.
I ordered the seedlings from Jasper-Pulaski and they cost about $550. That's cheap! I got 100 black walnut; 200 tulip; 200 shingle oak; 200 river birch; 200 black gum; 100 shagbark hickory; and 300 white pine trees. They were already out of Norway Spruce or I would have put some of those out.
I rented the tree planter from the Madison County S&W division. I had to drive to Anderson to pick it up (3 hour round trip). Fortunately it was on a trailer and not bad to haul. It cost me $50 to rent - cheap!
We probably spent an hour trying to rig the Deere to hold up the tree planter - it is one heavy dude and we couldn't get the plow off the ground. Finally we did, but it was SO back loaded that the front tires would come off the ground. You had to go REAL SLOW in order to make any turns.
The way this thing works is that a single bottom plow cuts a furrow, and the riders on the back drop a tree in the groove. Then two wheels at the back close up the groove. Pretty nifty.
Again it took us about 3 hours to plant 1,300 trees. That does not include our lunch break or filling the tractor up with gas - which we did 3 times. All told we burnt up about 18 gallons of gasoline.
For comparison, Lahrman's were planting corn and they were able to plant 40 acres before we even got all our grass down. Then again, the amount spent on diesel fuel for their tractor could probably buy our entire set-up.
Nick, Alex, and Kathy were the planters. I was the tractor driver. And Dad was the gator operator who resupplied us with trees and planted marker flags.
Get this, the tractor liked to jump out of gear about every 20 yards or so. Thus, the tree planters had to be on guard because they were going to lurch. Hold on tight kids!
So here we are on a 1946 John Deere B tractor with 18 horses of putt-putt and we BARELY could pull the planter.
We joined the two woods on our properties - Dad's with mine - about 1,000 trees. The rest went along the N side of my woods, in my woods, and along the S side of my yard.
Nick and Alex planting trees.
Imagine this position for 3 hours!
Now all that was the EASY part. After the trees were "planted" Nick, Alex and I walked them down to ensure that they were straight, their roots were not above ground, or they were not planted too deep. This took us another FIVE HOURS. Five hours of bending over and working on our knees. My legs still hurt and it's been two days!
On top of all this, we had to rebuild our septic system due to clogged tiles - from guess what - tree roots! We got that all dug up and repaired on Sunday.
At the end of Sunday, we are all back together and my future grandchildren should have one large woods full of prairie grass and wild flowers to enjoy! Well them and the deer, birds, rabbits, squirrels.....
I hope you have the walnut trees segregated from the rest. Over time, non-walnut trees will die off to at least 50" away. Trees in our orchard are still dying to get away from the walnuts by the bridge.
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