Forest pasture seven
(the one I’ve spent the most time experimenting on over the last year)
is brimming with potential this spring. We have high hopes we’ll
taste our first homegrown Nanking
cherries from there
this year — the fruits are already about half size and are swelling
fast.
The fenceline
planting is also
doing well. This area is actually right outside the pasture,
which makes it easy to establish new perennials without worrying about
trouble from chicken feet. My hope is that the red curants,
comfrey, and sunchokes I planted there will reach into the pasture and
become chicken fodder over the years to come.
Of course, the biggest
change in pasture 7 over the winter was the addition of a couple of terraces. It seems like my
worries about the
rotting timbers we used to hold the vertical faces up were unfounded — nothing
has moved over the winter and plants are already beginning to grow back
to hold the soil in place.
The comfrey roots I hacked out of the
forest garden and slipped into subsoil on the lower banks of the
terraces are also doing well. That’s the great thing about
comfrey — it thrives pretty much no matter what. The logs
I hauled out of the forest to add to that bank are also beginning
to work their way into the soil.
The only real failure so
far is the oat seeds that I scattered onto bare ground in early
spring. Despite a smattering of straw to help the seeds
germinate, the pasture instead turned into a bird buffet, attracting
cardinals and sparrows to the feeder. Luckily, there seems to be
enough wild growth present to keep our broilers happy as they explore
this pasture for the first time.
