Clearing for Walnut planting

I've been working on clearing the underbrush and invasive species on about 4 acres to direct seed some Black Walnut. I gathered, hulled, and washed half a 55 gallon drum of them from an area close to where these will be planted so they are native to the farm here.

I hit it hard last weekend and again this weekend so I can get them planted in the next couple of weeks.


Skidding a few of the EAB killed Ash out.


Last summer it was difficult to walk through here with all the Honeysuckle, Crabapple, Hawthorn, and multi-floral Rose.


Ending up with lots of "nature piles.


There's a bunch of nice 10-14" Black Walnut in the woods left of this area at the edge of the new clearing where most of the Walnuts were harvested. Some were taken from the other side of the farm to ensure some diversity. The state forester says this area down to the creek is ideal soil and conditions for Black Walnut.


Still more of the area being cleared of underbrush. Again, this was machete territory.


This is the logs that are destined to become firewood. Standing dead Ash and Honey Locust mostly. Anything with potential for Lumber or crotch slabs is already over by the sawmill. The stack at the rear is 6 cords CSS last year for the 21-22 heating season. Thinking what's laying here will be 3 or 4 cord. I'm not very good at estimating how much till it's CSS.


Neighbor and his oldest boy came over Saturday and assisted. They were a big help and they will get at least half of this firewood.

 

Nice work! Love the old tractors, so much more power than the newer models due to low gearing. Enjoy!!

 

Fergy kicks A$$... Don't know how I'd get by without it. Great uncle Harley bought it new in '59, the year I was born. Dad got it when I was 10 and my azz has been attached to the seat ever since. I still have and use the three point hitch 5' stubble beater Dad bought new when he got the tractor. I have picked up and made several other attachments over the years.

 

What a cool project! Keep the pics coming as it moves along.

 

any trick to planting those or just scatter at random?

 

I figured I would use a couple of 2" sticks with a limb coming out at 90* to make a couple foot stompers to pop a hole in the ground / mud / loam using the limb to step on like a shovel to make a 2" diameter hole about 2-1/2" deep. Drop the walnut in and stomp the dirt over it so it's about an inch or so deep. Repeat a couple thousand times...

That reminds me, I need to start looking for some sticks like that. I'm sure I've tossed hundreds of them into the "nature piles" already. I'll mark a few of them with orange flags on wires to keep track of progress of a sampling. I don't want to flag all of them to train the squirrels to DIG HERE. I'm not sure if they are that smart, but I'd rather not find out the hard way... LOL

The area to plant is about 8 acres, but the area needing cleared is only about half of that.

I've been able to get back there and do about 1 or 2 tanks of gas through a saw about everyday and about 5-8 tanks a day on the weekends when it isn't raining. I enjoy being out in the woods and it is great therapy for getting my knee back up to speed.

I know I'll never see these harvested, but it gives me inner peace to know that someday someone will benefit. I'm not sure if our son will want to continue on with this or not since he's out of state and busy with his own direction in life. But either way, it's my way of paying back mother nature for all of the resources I have benefitted from over the years. This woods has been pretty neglected for years and was pretty overrun with grapevine and invasive species and I'm just hoping to give it a little assist back to the more natural state of the forest it once was.

Plus, it's heating our home and a couple others and keeping me out of trouble and in a little better shape than being a couch potato.

Sorry to ramble, but I haven't gotten out much to talk to anyone the last couple weeks due to social distancing. I guess I didn't realize how much I like to talk... LOL

 

No worries. Sounds like a lot of work. Good workout for the knee. I "ramble" on about tree stuff all the time to anyone who'll listen. When Ms. buZZsaw is wearing my hearing protection, i know she doesnt wanna hear about firewood!

 

I know the feeling, my wife's eyes glaze over and I get the "blah, blah, blah" look... But she likes the fact that the house stays nice and toasty, she just doesn't want to hear the gory details, you know, the fun stuff...

Modified chainsaws at WOT!
The POP of wood jumping into splits!
The hinge squeek of the wood stove door closing on another load of 15% MC wood!
The click of the chap buckles getting the blood flowing with anticipation!
The satisfying "zip" of the file putting a razor edge on the chain!
The smell of bar oil and 2 stroke mix!
The muffled noise of chainsaw roaring to life through the hearing protection.

I could go on and on...

 

I like using a spade for planting yearling trees, but for dropping walnuts, I find a hole just bigger than the nut works well and is quick as long as it's springtime with soft loamy woods dirt that is a tad on the muddy side. Hard clay is different, but this area is all nice loamy woods dirt. When it's a little wet, the spade will load up with dirt / mud even though I keep all my tools spotless and oiled.

Thanks for the suggestions though. I'm a lazy azz that's always looking for an easier way to get things done.

 

Worked back in the walnut clearing putting two tanks of gas through the MS250 clearing brush and brambles this afternoon. Ran out of fuel mix so I ran into town to the gas station, drug store and picked up a pizza for a quick dinner. I've gone through a little over 4 gallons of mix in the last 3 weeks clearing this out.

After dinner I decided on a break from clearing and ran two tanks of fuel through the MS391 noodling some of the Pin Oak that got cut last fall but has just been sitting there. Pic is from about halfway through, I thought I better get a pic then cuz it was starting to get dark on me. It was in the 5o's today, but overcast with sprinkles off and on most of the day.

 

Getting ready to plant walnuts this weekend so I made a couple nut stompers to make it easy. Stomp on the threaded rod and it makes the hole just a tad bigger than a walnut to the correct depth. Drop in a nut and stomp the dirt back over it with your heel. Made a couple test runs and it works pretty good. We'll find out for sure tomorrow, the wife is gonna assit.

Nut stompers Suger Maple sapling & 3/8" threaded rod


Rod stomped to the ground gives a hole the correct depth to toss in a nut.


Had half a 55 gallon drum full of walnuts that were picked up, hulled, and cleaned last fall. The drum has a bunch of air holes so they wouldn't mildew or rot and stayed outside for the winter cycle so they will be viable for planting this spring. I had a heavy metal plate over the top of the drum to keep the squirrels out... they would have cleaned me out... LOL


I put the walnuts in bags to weigh them. There was 105 lbs. of nuts. I cracked a couple and they are still moist inside and look like they are ready to jump out of the shells once they get planted. They weren't dried out like we bag and hang in onion bags in the basement for eating.


I'm excited to get these planted this weekend. I have no idea how many nuts are here and I have no plans on counting them. I could probably do the math with the volume of the drum and the average size of a nut, but I'm just not that curious...LOL

 

Im curious, but i'm OCD Please exercise great caution when stomping your nuts please! It could end up being very painful!

 

Great project for future generations

 

Will you have to be constantly cleaning out all the underbrush in the area you plant the walnuts? Around here, in a cleared area like that, the salmonberry, huckleberry and salal would take over very quickly even if cleared out down to the soil. Will you have trouble with deer snacking on walnut shoots when they appear above the surface? In a lot of the logging slashes around here, new planted seedling trees are covered with milk carton like containers with open tops to keep the deer from eating them.

 

I'll keep an eye on things and do a several walk throughs every year to keep the brambles and invasive stuff at bay, but the idea is to get it kind of back to a real woods. We haven't taken out taller Maples, Oaks or other native species, just the invasive stuff and brambles.

As Dennis mentioned, the deer shouldn't be an issue for Walnut, but they are hard on pine trees... The main issue is making sure they're buried properly so the squirrels aren't feasting on the nuts before they sprout.

 

I like the attachment on the 3 point hitch for hauling out the logs. I might have to make one of those. Great job you are doing there.

 

It was pretty easy to make because I started with some scrap battery bases I was able to pick up from work. They were scrapping a bunch of them and I picked them up cheap. I picked up all of them that were being scrapped and I could bring some to GTG after this craziness is over if anyone would like to make one. PM me if anyone would be interested. I'll let 'em go for what I got in them cuz I was thinking of all you guys on this site when I was loading them on the truck. I think it took me a couple evenings and a Saturday morning to throw together. I tweeked it a couple times to enhance it and works pretty darn good for a home made cobbled up gizmo. More info on it is in: New home made toy for my 3 point hitch

There is a basic change that I would make if I made myself another one, but it isn't important enough that I'm planning on doing another one anytime soon. The top rail with the chain slots twisted back slightly when we were trying to pull a 40" HL trunk that was 24' long out of the clearing area. Fergy was having none of that so I cut it in half and was able to skid it out then. That chunk of HL had a bunch of knots and bad spots in it so it ended up as firewood. It was too big for our sawmill anyways.
The pieces I welded on the bottom of the top rail (for the top link connection) on the next one will extend on down to the bottom rail to aviod twisting the top rail. But now that I know what the limits of it are, I just won't hook on to anything that big again. LOL

That battery base is some pretty tough stuff. Wish you were closer cuz shipping one of these would be a bear. I forget what they weigh, but it's over 150 lbs.

Thanks for the compliments, but it's easy for me because I love being out in the woods anyway and we're not getting out on the town much these days...

 

We planted 1-1/2 or 2 of the 4 acres that will get planted on Saturday. We're gonna hit it again Sunday. We're working in grids about 60 to 80 feet squares with flags set at the corners so it's easy to keep track of what has gotten planted. Then we each take a grid and plant rows ten feet apart with 8 foot spacing in the grid, then move to the next grid. The target is 545 seeds per acre if it was all open clearing. Since we aren't planning on taking out native species in this area, the planting density will not be quite that high. Also there are several 30 - 40 year old walnut trees in that area with no intention of planting directly under them. The intention isn't to have a field of Walnut trees, but a more natural Ohio woodland with emphasis on Walnut trees.

The nut stompers are working out well. I did some counting and measuring of the Walnuts in the barrel and come up with between 3,000 and 3,500 walnuts in the barrel.

I mentioned above in an earlier post that the target area was 8 acres. That was incorrect. The target planting area is just under 4 acres. Still a bunch when working it all by hand in our spare time.

Walnut in a hole


It was a pretty good workout for the recovering knee. Just what it needs. Jenny is a trooper. She was out there with me most of the time.