Chestnuts

It's been a while since I wrote about the farm, but only because we've been busy planting chestnut trees. We have planted about 25 acres in Dunstan chestnut trees.

Step one was plowing and tilling. The earth is so rocky and grassy that tilling is the only way to make the soil workable and give us a good soil consistency in which to plant. Step two was planting (yes, with a shovel). We did auger a few holes for trees on a steep part of the farm where the soil is not in good shape. This was done mainly to prevent the erosion during heavy downpours.

We started planing trees last week, March 30 and finished this morning. The next step will be tree tubes. The chestnut seedlings are 24-36 inches tall. We have ordered tree tubes that are 5 feet tall and prevent deer and other animals from destroying our crop. I'll blog about our crop from last year on another day - it's a little sad. I will say that the trees that survived all had deer scare tape on them. So a thank-you to the scare tape folks.

I'll post some photos after the tubes have been installed. It's hard to see the seedlings from a distance of more than 2 feet. And hopefully we'll see some budding and leafing in the next few weeks.