Field growing practice

[Rivian]

Hello, I recently aquired some land and now Im planning field growing on it.

I want to know from people who have field grown what were things you didnt expect to see, or what went wrong.

Especially if your field is not next to your house or a residential area, how do you keep people out, and have any of your subjects been dug up and stolen from the field, or did someone destroy trees for fun.
Or did you have problems with animals, or only noticed too late that the soil had an issue.

But you can share positive surprises too.

Cheers

 

[BobbyLane]

Never had to worry about people stealing stuff that is growing in the ground no, my allotment is locked anyway and its right beside my building so i can see who comes n goes. ugly lumps of wood in big training pots tend to blend in well with all the other stuff that people are growing so not had any trouble really. only had the odd tree dug up by foxes. dont use any ferts that contain fish, blood or bone as the foxes will smell it and dig it up thinking its a dead animal.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

You can't keep people out unless you use a good gate, you can't prevent people from stealing or ruining your trees if they really want to. Happened twice to me: some kids were drinking and bored, they destroyed six greenhouses and plowed through every garden in the field AND they stole our tools.
It took 6 months and a pile of paperwork to get an axe back, because it was 'evidence'.

Taproots are an issue, so it's good to prevent them.

Also watering is quite important, especially with these dry summers you'll need to water once, and an hour later when the soil has regained some sponginess, you water a second or even a third time. It's not hard work but it takes an hour and a half a couple times every week.

 

[BobbyLane]

Yeh our allotment is very private and secluded and has a locked gate, surrounded by residential garden fences and tall hedging trees, you would never know its there unless you know someone that has a plot there and we have a whatsap group. just use pieces of slate or plastic/tiles when planting in the ground, you dont want tap roots forming you want roots going horizontally. i also use weed matting, but its not fool proof, the weeds always find a gap. i find when you plant trees under the weed matting the area stays very humid and moist, so often ive only had to water trees in after planting for 2-3 weeks maybe every few days or every second day to begin with. i think this matting and added humidity has led to some very rampant growth in some trees along with scattering chicken shit everywhere!

you can build a chicken wire fence around it to keep people from walking over it, this is mine
Allotment plot by Bobby Lane, on Flickr

its actually a little bigger now, i was allowed to extend it to the concrete slab

 

[Rivian]

You can't keep people out unless you use a good gate, you can't prevent people from stealing or ruining your trees if they really want to. Happened twice to me: some kids were drinking and bored, they destroyed six greenhouses and plowed through every garden in the field AND they stole our tools.
It took 6 months and a pile of paperwork to get an axe back, because it was 'evidence'.

Taproots are an issue, so it's good to prevent them.

Also watering is quite important, especially with these dry summers you'll need to water once, and an hour later when the soil has regained some sponginess, you water a second or even a third time. It's not hard work but it takes an hour and a half a couple times every week.

Thats sad to hear and yeah I agree its hard to keep people out, garden houses here get broken into sometimes, even if they have to break the metal door, they do their worst. So Im not gonna build a shed, dont need to anyway.

Security through obscurity may work best, perhaps dont even build a fence just some thorny bushes/ raspberries kinda believably natural placed

But I worry if I plant deshojo or trident maples etc theyre gonna stick out like sore thumbs anyway when Autumn comes...

So maybe a thick hedge + fence would be best, maybe yew or hawthorn. Of course it doesnt need Oceans 11 to break into even that but if its inconvenient enough theyll go somewhere else

 

[Pitoon]

Hello, I recently aquired some land and now Im planning field growing on it.

I want to know from people who have field grown what were things you didnt expect to see, or what went wrong.

Especially if your field is not next to your house or a residential area, how do you keep people out, and have any of your subjects been dug up and stolen from the field, or did someone destroy trees for fun.
Or did you have problems with animals, or only noticed too late that the soil had an issue.

But you can share positive surprises too.

Cheers

DO NOT SHARE the location of the land with no one you can't trust.

 

[leatherback]

Well.. My plot is "out in the fields", about 45 min drive from my house. Needless to say.. I do not go there multiple times a day. It being on sandy soils, it dries out VERY fast. So I have accepted that I will loose plants due to drought.

Important to not just let them grow but maintain. I have some linden trees that I let grow for 2 years and ended up with 2 inch chops, which are now 3 years healing.
Grow predominantly rare species. No sense in spending years growing something that you can get for a few buck in any store. My plot has things like "Golden Rain", trident maples, ittoigawa, zelkova, corkbark elm. As I could get some seed.. Growing from seed black pine, schots pine and larch. Linden, blackthorn etc.

So far no trouble with people digging stuff up. For most people these are just shrubs that for some strange reason I am growing.

Against the heat and drought: I do not weed often. So in the peak of summer there might be 30cm of weeds everywhere. Providing shelter and humidity protection, saving you the surface roots. Some 4? 5? 6? weeks ago I cleaned up.

 

[leatherback]

DO NOT SHARE the location of the land with no one you can't trust.

Yeah.

Where is your plot?

 

[Pitoon]

Yeah.

Where is your plot?

It's located on my side of the pond

 

[Rivian]

Well.. My plot is "out in the fields", about 45 min drive from my house. Needles to say.. I do not go there multiple times a day. It being on sandy soils, it dries out VERY fast. So I have accepted that I will loose plants due to drought.

Important to not just let them grow but maintain. I have some linden trees that I let grow for 2 years and ended up with 2 inch chops, which are now 3 years healing.
Grow predominantly rare species. No sense in spending years growing something that you can get for a few buck in any store. My plot has things like "Golden Rain", trident maples, ittoigawa, zelkova, corkbark elm. As I could get some seed.. Growing from seed black pine, schots pine and larch. Linden, blackthorn etc.

So far no trouble with people digging stuff up. For most people these are just shrubs that for some strange reason I am growing.

Against the heat and drought: I do not weed often. So in the peak of summer there might be 30cm of weeds everywhere. Providing shelter and humidity protection, saving you the surface roots. Some 4? 5? 6? weeks ago I cleaned up.

I think I have clay-ish soil and some wind protection through the surroundings, probably wont have to water much.

I had a small leaf linden tree but it was so uninteresting that I threw it away, will only consider that species again if I come across old material with a lot of character

I already have a list of plants I want to grow, like oriental hornbeam, metasequoia, wisteria floribunda rosea and different palmatum and buergerianum varieties

 

[Jpane]

This is my plot for field growing. Easily seen from the street and luckily no one seems to care about it. My biggest problem has been animals, mostly deer, mice and rabbits love a nice Japanese maple. I’ve managed to thwart their attacks with individual barriers on each tree. But only after considerable damage. I do have a question as to how a tree is planted on a tile and kept stable.

 

[AJL]

Weed control,deer, rabbits and maybe voles could be more of an issue than human pests!

 

[BobbyLane]

This is my plot for field growing. Easily seen from the street and luckily no one seems to care about it. My biggest problem has been animals, mostly deer, mice and rabbits love a nice Japanese maple. I’ve managed to thwart their attacks with individual barriers on each tree. But only after considerable damage. I do have a question as to how a tree is planted on a tile and kept stable.View attachment 341198View attachment 341200

what is that mice find appealing about maples? i had a trident clump that died because it got ring barked by a small rodent probably a mouse.

 

[leatherback]

what is that mice find appealing about maples?

sugarwaterbark?

 

[BobbyLane]

sugarwaterbark?

Thought it might be along those lines, luckily my field maples have stayed rodent free, maybe not as sweet

 

[Fonz]

Anyone using weed cloth/barrier on their ground growing plot?

 

[leatherback]

Thought it might be along those lines, luckily my field maples have stayed rodent free, maybe not as sweet

EVerything from far away is eotic and better than the locals!

 

[leatherback]

Anyone using weed cloth/barrier on their ground growing plot?

I do not. I like to pile up all the weeds and clippings and dig it into the soil when I re-organize the trees and do rootwork. And as said.. The weeds reduce the sun hitting the soil, keeping it moist longer.

 

[Rivian]

Im now considering a Pyracantha hedge, does anyone know if theres danger that it would send out shoots from the roots all over the place? That its kind of invasive?

If not, it seems like the best choice: Evergreen, nasty thorns, and even bees and birds get something out of it

 

[Shibui]

I have not experienced pyracantha sending up root suckers down here. They do spread very easily from seeds when the birds eat the fruit. Some also self layer when low branches touch the ground but don't spread far by that method.
I think you should be OK with pyracantha hedge if you really think you need that sort of security.

I'm certainly glad I don't live where such measures are needed.