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Earth Stewardship 101 - Part One continued

by Sheri Dixon

When I asked about native plants to introduce on the creek banks to hold soil against erosion, she said just don’t cut the trees on the bank and the roots will keep the soil. Unfortunately, a lot of our trees’ roots are becoming exposed and the trees are leaning across the creek trying their best to hang onto that dirt. It seems to me that there are smaller plants that could help the trees...

A totally unexpected piece of information that Julie provided to me regarded the electric poles (small single wooden ones, not the big multi-wired metal monsters) that march through our wetland area and across part of the front of the property.  I need to call the electric company ASAP because they come out in helicopters and drop defoliation chemicals to keep the area under the poles clear. Considering the spring activity in the wetland and the proximity of the creek to the front of the property I see this as B-A-D.  She told me her husband works for the electric company and if I call them and promise to keep the area under the wires mowed, they will come out and flag the boundaries of our place, keeping the helicopters away.

Aerial Map

I like Julie.  She gave me some good ideas and I expanded her knowledge of dairy goats, something she’s been wanting to learn about.  Several weeks after her visit, we received a nice report in the mail from her including a topographic map, a soils map and corresponding soil chart, and two aerial maps - one from two years ago and one from ten years ago.  There are also flyers about the different varieties of Bermuda grass, one on prescribed grazing, one on pest management using planted clover to choke out weeds since I expressed our desire to do as little with poisons as possible, two on pasture and hay land planting (guides for using the different Bermudas), and a flyer on purchase and installation of ram pumps (both hydro powered and solar powered) to move water into water tanks keeping livestock out of the creek.

Now, most all the farms around here that want high yields of fine quality hay will plant, fertilize, and cut Bermuda grass. The small niggling unease I feel about Bermuda grass is that it’s not native and horrendously invasive.

My next call will be to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. biologist.  Like my new friend Julie, the T.P.W.D. biologist will come out free of charge.  They have programs to restore NATIVE grasses as well as forbs for pasture and hay management that include the lending of special ‘no till’ planters to minimize erosion.  I’m thinking that since I’m mostly feeding goats (who are browsers, not grazers) that having a mixture of things, even in the hay, would be a good thing.  I believe that they will also be able to give me a better idea of ‘edge’ type native plants to keep erosion at bay on my creek banks, and hopefully some guidance for what to plant/nurture/harvest in our spring rich wetlands area.

As purty as a field of bright green Bermuda hay is waving in the breeze, I’ll be willing to bet that a meadow of wild grasses and flowers  would not only be purtier, but actually easier to maintain without a lot of human or chemical input.  There’s an appeal to restoring an area to natural health and I’m excited at the prospect of both helping wildlife and sustaining ourselves simultaneously.

Of course I don’t know for a fact it’ll work that way, but we’re fixin’ to find out.

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