It was an exciting day when the Nordic Fencing team arrived to begin building the deer fence. Over the 6 years we have lived here the deer population has exploded. The deer eat every new shoot that comes out of the ground preventing all plant succession happening in the forest. I had given up buying plants because it was like laying out a buffet for them. They are particularly hungry in the spring and eat everything, the whole plant, not just a nibble like they used to.
We took our time making the decision about a deer fence because we didn't like the idea of being fenced in.
The design of the fence incorporates the buildings - my studio and the house acting as barriers to the deer entering the fenced area. We have placed the fence so it can't be seen (much) from the house.
This is Mike doing the hard job of digging holes for the posts.
He uses a manual digger, but not this one because it is Matt's, and so named.
The fencing team is very good about the minimal disturbance of the forest vegetation and understand we are fencing to protect the forest.
Meanwhile, the green manure crop is sprouting and covering the bare soil in the rock garden beds.
We got a delivery of straw bails to use as a mulch to cover the soil after the green manure crop is dug into the soil. We don't want hay because that introduces grass seeds to the garden beds. In the forest ecosystem, we are working to eliminate bacteria supported grasses and encouraging fungal dominant soils.
No comments:
Post a Comment