# Woods? Ideas for farming?



## Dusty864 (Apr 1, 2015)

We have 100 acers of rolling hills of trees! Any ideas for things to farm in shade? We can do some cleaning but takes a lot of time so we wouldn't be able to clear more than an acer or two a year. Any input is great. Thanks


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

Pot?

Seriously, here in Cali that is all you find on wooded farms.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

My land is very hilly, rocky and covered with juniper/cedar and hackberry trees.

I have been cutting the trees in the lower areas on the south side of the property first - to get full sunlight, and to capture rainfall flow.

I keep the biggest stuff for firewood, and the small branches have been getting chipped into mulch. I'm trying a form of modified "HugelKulture" by laying down a bed of chippings and covering with a few inches of topsoil I haul in with my trailer. The wood chips will break down over time, as well as what the termites will chew up. 

Yes, it is slow process. 

I work full time, so can only do about a half acre per year.


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## readytogo (Apr 6, 2013)

Check with your state agricultural department but as far as I know you need light to grow stuff especially food, if the grown is no good you can at least try Hydroponics but you will need light. Good luck.


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## bacpacker (Jul 15, 2011)

Checkout forest gardening. I don't have much woodland, but it's what I'm trying to develop. Perrineal crops are much less time consuming once established.


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## HardCider (Dec 13, 2013)

Goats and pigs. Goats clear out the underbrush and the pigs while hunting for acorns will till up and fertilize the soil.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

After the trees finish budding out, identify each one & mark the crap trees to be cut down. Goats will keep the underbrush cleaned up for you. The garden needs to be close to the house, the best fertilizer is the gardener's feet!  It's more secure there anyway. Little by little, it'll get the way you want it. Look on the bright side, it'll be faster for you to clear the trees you don't want than it would be to grow trees you do want & wildlife love the woods. We're doing the same thing, it's a lot of physical labor but we don't spend time at the gym! Invest in a good chainsaw & find a good spot to stack lots of firewood. If you feel too overwhelmed with it all, hire a small portion of it done to get you a good start.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

tsrwivey said:


> After the trees finish budding out, identify each one & mark the crap trees to be cut down.


Yes, by all means. It lets the water & nutrients go to the trees actually worth keeping. Hackberry trees are worthless for anything other than to cut up into chips. They are even the worst firewood!


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## zombieresponder (Aug 20, 2012)

Before you do anything, observe a portion of the property that you'd like to work on. Go look at it from different angles and at different times of the day. Preferably, you'll do this for at least a few months, but it's better if you do so throughout all of the seasons your climate has. What you're looking for is how and where the light falls, where water tends to puddle or run off, etc. After that, you will have a good idea of what needs to be changed or how to work around it to accomplish your overall goal.

As an example, you might look at the property after a snow when it has begun to melt and find that some places still have large accumulations of snow that don't seem to be melting at all. It could be because it's a cold pocket, and it would be unwise to plant marginally cold tolerant plants for your area in that spot.

I would identify which trees to remove, and I'd err on the side of removing too few. It's easy to remove more quickly if needed, but takes a lot of years to replace an old hardwood. If I were clearing a lot of undesirable bushes/shrubs/vines, I would _immediately_ replant something I did want in that space. If you don't, nature will retake it unless you continually work to maintain it.


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## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

Dusty864 said:


> We have 100 acers of rolling hills of trees! Any ideas for things to farm in shade? We can do some cleaning but takes a lot of time so we wouldn't be able to clear more than an acer or two a year. Any input is great. Thanks


What kind of farming do you have in mind? Commercial, truck sales or just personal use?

For just home use, pick a couple trees a year to kill, and use for firewood. If it is older growth or climax forest, one tree canopy will open a pretty good area of sunlight to the forest floor. Watch the sun's path and maybe cut two in a line to open it for many hours a day. Work around the stump and in a few years it will be gone.

If it is too nasty to till, dig holes! Dig, pick rocks and fertilize one sq. ft. or 18" round holes to plant in. I never saw in the vegetable growers rule book where everything needed to be planted in neat rows.

If you plan on a large area, it is just going to take time. Do like the early settlers did, start in an existing clearing and as you clear for firewood, hack/dig/burn stumps until you had a real field.


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## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

Forgot the most important part!!

Howdy and welcome to the forums!!!


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

All good info so far imho. Without knowing the climate, soil type, and what type of woodland you have it is hard to offer specific advice. Forest gardening can work quite well in many situations, and permaculture in general has some good ideas for growing food without putting out a lot of effort on a continual basis.

That aside, a good portion of our farm is exactly that; rolling hills and trees. After well over 100 years we have found that the best use, in general, and for us, is cattle. Cattle are cheap to fence in, can reach leaves almost as high as a person can, are excellent at digesting leaves and other bush type materials (better than goats even), and can take care of themselves 99% of the time. Now, the woods I am talking about are mostly poplar and birch, an old growth stand of conifers is a different matter entirely.

There are many other things that can work, mushrooms like shitake and oyster can be incorporated into a clearing/management regime while utilizing needed shade. You can even put the spores right in your chainsaw. But, for something like 100 acres, I would look at some livestock.


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## Dusty864 (Apr 1, 2015)

Thanks yall. I'm hoping to clear near the house and leave the river side woody just for some privacy. We have sheep and goats now but need more grazing and growing area. I'd just like to farm enough to pay the bills. We have been lucky enough to be mortgage free but the fall back is living in a 5th wheel. Plan is to use the trees to build a house at some point. thanks for all the good advice. Any one know a good way to kill Mountain Laurel? That's our biggest problem when it comes to the goats. The whole property is covered in that junk.


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

tsrwivey said:


> After the trees finish budding out, identify each one & mark the crap trees to be cut down. Look on the bright side, it'll be faster for you to clear the trees you don't want than it would be to grow trees you do want & wildlife love the woods. We're doing the same thing, it's a lot of physical labor but we don't spend time at the gym! Invest in a good chainsaw & find a good spot to stack lots of firewood.


I'm glad you mentioned this, it's what we have been doing on our property since moving here in 1981. Most of the trees we got rid of over the years were Bull Pine, no good for firewood, lumber, about all I used them for was to slow down snow and rain run off. It's been a lot of physical labor over the years, I joke that that is how I stay in such good physical condition, I wear out shovels, there are times when I look at what I've done, I feel like I'm a human backhoe and many a shovel I've worn out often looks more like a two pronged fork. We've owned a Ford 4000 diesel tractor with front end loader, it was good for some things, but, I really would like to have a small crawler, D-4 or just under for moving logs, terracing the hill above us and flattening out the lower garden area. It's a nice wish, just a bit out of our budget abilities. Funny thing is, I happen to believe that all the hard work is keeping me young, it's hard to accept that my chronological age is 72 and I can still do things younger folks have a hard time doing. I will say that it also pays to have good neighbors, ours are better than family in that if we need help they are just a phone call away, our son, on the other hand, seldom calls or comes here and due to his work schedule, is often hard to get a hold of. Here's a good example of how that works, he may call around Christmas and tell us he has some gifts for us, we may get them in June or July, that's happened a few times, no big deal, we still love him.


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