Erin's land journal

No elderberry resolution, but I've been thinking:

One of my major fencing issues is that dogs need to be able to pass through all fences to protect livestock and also to access the house with their food etc. I want to keep geese, pigs, and ideally ducks and chickens out of the area around the house though. I'd been thinking I'd need to build a dog door into a piece of plywood in the fence, to let the dogs through, but today I had a new idea. What if I made part of the fence a 2' wide/tall section of roofing tin? The dogs can easily hop over that without it training them to hop over normal fences. Pigs will be unlikely to pass through it unless very motivated since they don't like going through something they can't see (it would be a secondary fence system for the pigs in case they got out of electric; not a primary system where they'd have time to learn to hop it). Geese could fly over it but if there was food and water and grass on their side they'd be unlikely to, and likewise the ducks. The top is sharpish, so they're unlikely to hop onto it and then over. Chickens and muscovies will just fly over but with just them around the house there should be less of a mess and I may end up confining the chickens anyhow.

That said, here are the elderberry considerations:

Fence along the road: this would be a really great place to have them. Those spruce trees are dying and it would be nice to replace them with a screen that's not just aspen. The soil is relatively rich and something with reaching roots could capture ditch water. However, it's pretty grassy and there's a dog trail there so the babies would have lots of competition and not be well protected. They'd also be shaded by the remaining spruce trees. This might be a better place to plant test apples?

South fence by the berries: they'd be just south of three apple trees on antonovka rootstock (very small now), and south of my berries, but there's a big slope here. If they're at the bottom of the slope they'll get good moisture without baking too badly and they won't be shaded by the apples, but they will shade some of my berries over time. The bottom of the slope has pretty dense turf, though the rest of the slope has been well cardboard-and-mulched. This area will always be fighting off grass since the grass will be coming through the fence from the neighbour's pasture. It's certainly not a candidate for more apple trees, and theoretically the elderberries would be able to compete well after a couple years, especially if I cardboard them regularly.

Pig fence south: this is between apple trees on B118. It's pretty sunny, receives a ton of moisture from the slope of the winter pigpen to the north, and will be between my potato bed and the pigpen so would have relatively little grass competition. They would shade the garden after a couple years but it's a good slope, so when the sun goes high in summer it would be fine. There would mostly be shade in fall as the sun got lower. This is a high goose-activity area so they'd need to be well protected; the apple trees here got some nibbly setbacks. This area is a bit shaded by the house, a fold in the ground, and the sinking shed.

South fence by the house: mom cleared this area under the aspens last year. It gets lots of sun and is more open than I'd like. It needs plant screening, though because it's on the slope it could use some tall screening to actually impact the yard. This wouldn't shade any garden space. The ground itself is pretty hard and dry both because it's the south-slopiest and because of all the aspens there. The aspens need to go but maybe putting plants under there before the aspens are gone would damage the plants when the aspens were coming down.

Pig fence north, between pigs and woodfield: this is a little complex. The fence is currently at the top of a short, steep slope; the pigs can access the slope. They're eroding it. They love lying on it in the sun. If I plant on the slope itself it would stabilize the slope, and the elderberries would be down a bit so they wouldn't shade the woodfield garden too much. On the other hand I'd need to move the fence to the bottom of the slope for that since the pigs would just uproot the elderberries. The fence is lots of wood right now and shades the woodfield so that would be good to do. The spot gets near full sun. If moving the fence was easy I'd definitely decide on this spot. As it is I could plant directly on the other side of the fence from the pigs, on the flat, and the roots might still help stabilize. They'd shade the woodfield garden though and that's the sandy flat garden that's my most conventional growing conditions. If I'm ever going to get root crops it'll be up there. OTOH I have been thinking of putting apple trees up there, and elderberries to the south of apples is a perfect shade situation. Also then I couldn't run pigs in this field for a couple years, and after that not for long.

Woodfield fence north: northernmost edge of my property. Always nice to have screening around this sort of area. If I plant apple trees in the woodfield they will shade the elderberries but not for a couple years at least. Right now it's in full sun and if I retain it as a field it will remain that way. Again the grass creeps through from the (other) neighbour's pasture but depending on how close to the fence I plant it's clear right now and I can cardboard around it. I'd like a mixed-species hedgerow to end up here eventually and I will certainly plant other things in here so the elderberry seems like a good start. Any perennials here will require me to mostly exclude the pigs from this area.

Between woodfield and back field: this is a bit messy right now, that fence is falling down. Because it's a north-south line rather than an east-west one it creates less shade, and is itself in the shade of two spruce trees for a bit of each day. I'd have to redo the fence but I guess if I put them here I wouldn't be letting the pigs in much so they could replace the fence in some ways. There's a bit of grass, sod, and aspen in one corner of this space, preserved as a bit of a refugia for critters in the middle of the long garden. Not sure how much competition it would be for the babies.

Between the back field and the back pasture: at the base of the slope back field garden, to the south, there's a ridge of soil pushed down by pigs. It's a foot or two in from the fence, where the electric fence was, and it's a long, great planting site. Shortish woody perennials here would give nice shade to the bottom of the garden and they could be planted on that berm. However, they will shade the garden. This is a spot I've been considering a mixed hedge just because it's so easy to plant into. I don't want too much visual screening because I want to be able to see into the field from the house. Again grass will come through the fence but less so since my pasture is grazed. A row of sour cherries and plums would be stunning here. Elderberries would be a bit taller but could be cut back?