Eco-friendly weeding - part 2

So, armed now with our new (important) knowledge of our soil health, we can plan for next year's fodder.

But, before we can even consider adding anything (lime) to the soil, we need to get rid of the forest of weeds that has sprung up on the 1hA area.  Weeds are always a good indicator of soil health - they will flourish in poor soil - big time!

A carpet of weeds swathes the land...

It is not a small task.  Quite monumental in fact...

And, RMan almost wavered.  But, as always, he had me chirping in his ear - keeping him on the straight and narrow LOL  How did he almost waver?  Because of the size of the task he wanted to take the easy way out and use Roundup.

Not whilst I am here.  Roundup is not an option.

I don't like being a naysayer - and, whenever possible, I will try and figure out an alternative on my own, or, failing that, I will throw idea's around with RMan until the two of us hit upon a solution.  Which we invariably do ;)

This time the solution came to me in a lightbulb moment.

We should segregate the land, dividing the fodder growing section from our veggie / fruit section with a fence.

And, I can hear you thinking - "Exactly how is that going to benefit us?"

The land around us is severly overgrazed by all the neighbours animals - cows, sheep and goats. Ours has had 5 years with no animals.  But, if we "invite" the sheep over for a temporary munch, we can't sit and watch them 24 /7 until the deed is done.  With a fence in place, they can happily gobble down all the weeds without fear that they will access their "forbidden area" and eat what they aren't supposed to.

RMan is the type of person who works best with visual evidence, so once again Google Earth came to the rescue.

The Google Earth image I used
to convince RMan my idea was
workable

He loved the idea.  And, he loved it even more early the next morning as we sipped our morning cup of tea / coffee and discussed it whilst wandering the land.

So - give RMan an idea that he likes, and he'll run with it.

RMan and John - working in overcast, hot weather.
 Add to that a howling sou'easter for two days -
not condusive to flimsy marker lines remaining
straight, but they did good :)

This past week has been a frenzy of buying gum poles and getting them into the ground.  In between the gumpoles we're going to continue the wooden horizontal plank theme - similar to what we did with the paddocks - thus visually tying the two area's together.

As soon as the fence is complete the sheep will be invited over.  They can munch away to their heart's delight, whilst simultaneously leaving their droppings behind.  RMan will mix that in together with the remnants of the weeds (hopefully, with only a few seeds), and the 2 tons of lime that he's going to add in a couple of weeks time.

Win-win for everyone :)