Monday, September 8, 2014

Get to work, planting and cutting weeds (of course)

57 seedlings planted this weekend: chestnut, red oak and a couple of catalpa. I started the catalpa from seed from a neighbor who moved to a new house last fall and I picked a few seed pods from his yard. Germination rate was about 10% and I only have about 5 seedlings that were okay and one that excelled.

Acorns have been falling for a couple of weeks and I picked some swamp white and red oak acorns from a group of trees at a college in Cedar Rapids. I get a few looks from the drivers as they pass by but no one has called security yet. I'll be stopping by a few more times over the next weeks and I'll get as many as I can before the squirrels can bury them before winter. After float testing them, I ended up with only a couple dozen good acorns.

I planted 10 white oak acorns yesterday. This makes 458 fruit trees and seedlings, 242 acorns and nuts for a total of 700 new plantings this year.

Not bad for couple of part-time conservationists and their son.

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