Clearing an old pasture

[aquinnk]

I recently purchased property that is nearly 100% wooded. There is a 1.5 acre area that used to be pasture, that is now small pine trees ranging from 1 to 4 inches in diameter. I would like to reconvert this area back into pasture. I would probably use it for a garden area. 

So my question is this:
Would it be better to spend the money to have a forestry mulcher come in and turn all of the trees into mulch ($1000+?), or use that money to buy a chainsaw and bike handle style brush cutter (I'll have to buy them either way)? Money is more an issue than time, as I don't mind going through and cutting the trees down, I just don't want to lose out on all of that soil improvement that the mulch would add, and having the stumps level with the ground. Does the mulch add enough nutrients to constitute spending the money on a timber mulcher? 

[Andries]

If you want to use that 1.5 acres for garden, you'll want to deal with all the roots.
A root spade or a stump bucket on a good sized fel/tractor will pop them out pretty quickly.
Then mulch the tops and roots.

[Southside]

Where are you located and how much top soil do you really have?  Pine suggests it might be sandy soil.  Soil disturbance / inversion can play a big part in the success of your garden.  Tearing out / grubbing stumps can be really hard on marginal ground, as a result a mulcher shines.  You can sub soil with certain mulcher heads meaning that the stumps would be disintegrated and become a valuable soil input.   

Myself I would look to remove the sticks and then put some cattle and pigs on the ground and let them address the stump issue.   

[thecfarm]

Good to see you posting.
Depends too on when the garden is going in.    And how much work you want to do. I do that with just a chain saw and a bog hog. But the bush hog does not get down as low. I use to use a mini bush hog.  :D  That is just a lawn mower. If I got one year out of one, I was doing good. 
But I also have rocks to work around. Go down into the ground a few inches, will find rocks. Takes time and A lot of work to do that much of an area. Than the brush has to be burned. 

[mike_belben]

I too think putting livestock in is the most effective way to make this patch productive soil.  If it was good dirt itd have non pines like jim said.   A clearing saw to knock all the sapplings down in place.   This will provide sun on the dirt.  Throw handfulls of forage seed into it the brush and get your fence up.  One its greened up, a few animals. Pigs and chickens will landscape and fertilize it for you.  Theyll mash up the rotting brush and till it in.  Prevent the stumps from regenerating etc.  You can sell the grown pigs after.  Chicken will keep.the june bug grubs and flea beetles, cutworms etc in check.

[moodnacreek]

What I have done in a field like that is ride the tractor and brush hog around and around. The ones I can't run over get chain sawed and then run over. The lazy man's way. Do this mowing every time the weeds come up. Time goes by fast and you may get a plow through a section while the roots are rotting in another.  

[aquinnk]

I'm in east central Alabama so the roots should rot fast, maybe in a summer or 2. The soil is somewhat sandy. I like the idea of putting livestock on it. I'm thinking for the ease of clearing quickly, I'll cut all of the larger trees and save the trunks for fencing and such, and burn the rest. Is it worth keeping the brush to let it rot vs just burning it to get rid of it? I wanted to do the forestry mulcher, as I like the idea of the trees turning back into soil, but I could really use the money elsewhere. Thanks everyone for chiming in. 

[thecfarm]

Brush here will take about 10 years to rot, well in a pile it will. If cutting trees down, I cut whatever I leave in the woods in short pieces, I try for no longer than 2 feet. I know in 5 years it's gone, this is limbs smaller than 2 inches. 

[mike_belben]

If you have the means to push it up with a machine, get a dirt mixture into the diced up pile.   itll compost quite a lot in about 2 years, leaving only the bigger stuff intact when you push this enriched dirt pile back out. Manures and nitrogen from green matter improves the process.  So does moisture.   



A tractor with a single bottom plow can pluck fair sized sapling stumps up especially after a few years being dead.. But that also may bring a lot of bad dirt up into your topsoil if youve got thin soil over sand or sandy clay.  No till seems to be a better crop method in marginal soils. 

[kantuckid]

For a garden area I fail to see putting livestock on it after a chainsaw job as serving any purpose? In E KY cutting at the ground into pine post if 4" will sell as the smallest of post sizes they buy in my area. The roots will be there a very good while here and a pine tree doesn't regenerate? If you want a garden anytime soon meaning in the ~ next 6-8 years, I'd doze it and burn piles or rent a chipper and even then you'll likely need to go about building the soil to garden level fertility. In my area any garden if you don't have a dog nearby will require a deer fence too. We get by with a solar electric fence for deer but nothing keeps the coons out, short of a top fence over it all and even then they'll dig underneath. 
Good luck with the garden idea, it's a war zone out there! We fight off coons, rabbits, crows, possums, coyotes(they eat corn these days!), groundhogs, various insects, early blight/late blight and other soil borne goodies. Throw in global warming a weird weather patterns in recent years, you'll need some luck IMO. 

Never saw cattle eat pine roots and pigs may dig but hardly are they through enough to create a garden plot where trees have been growing. Yes, I have done what this thread is about. Some became garden for a few years, most was re-planted in Virginia Pine with alternate rows of EWP both from KY State tree farm seedlings. 

[SwampDonkey]

We've always cut it off and taken any firewood or pulp, root rake it up into piles with the limbs, let dry a season, burn the brush. Be done with it. ;D

[kantuckid]

I had one smaller part of what I'd planted in pines that got turned over by an ice storm. It was small like the OP's  deal.  I had it dozed for about $500 and burned as swampydonkey says. Another spot the trees were near maxed out in  size and mostly all jack pine which we also call field pine or black pine here. I cut them and sold two log truck loads. Then, after seeing that it was decent soil for my goat farm type of land on these hills, I spent mucho money on strawberry plants and raspberry vines. The deer knew about it and ate virtually everything I planted there. It's now turning into a hardwood area naturally.   

[Iwawoodwork]

At your young age purchase good quality hand tools, chain saw and handle bar brush cutter that will last many years  and start clearing. Its good exercise and very rewarding, I have 6,3 acres at this site, steep hill side,  heavily wooded that I have hand cleared under brush and dead downed trees for fire wood. the front half is now almost park like the back half looked good until the big snow 2 years ago, now have several log stacks to bring off the hill.

[stavebuyer]

I am a big fan of letting the stumps rot in place especially if the topsoil is thin. And doing it by hand you won't clear "extra" that you don't really need cleared and end up having to mow from now on.

[SwampDonkey]

Stumps take quite awhile to rot for some odd reason. It took 20 years for some box elder to rot out enough to remove by hand here. I kept pounding at them for years. But yet in the woods, 10 years after a clear cut any wood that laid on the ground was nothing but duff you could bust up with your boot. Softwood stumps are still persistent after 15 years. I have cedar stumps that are still hard/solid after 30 years.  Hardwood stumps were mostly gone in 15 years. When thinning with clearing saw, a nice spruce stump along your trail is nice for a seat on a rest break. ;D

[aquinnk]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll buy a good chainsaw and brush cutter and start cutting, as y'all have said. Then burn everything when done, but save some truncks for firewood and posts. I'm not too worried about having a garden too soon, worst case I can do some raised beds in the meantime.

[mike_belben]

I push dirt up on my stumps to keep them wet and encourage all the decaying stuff to take up residence. Seems to help them get a little punkier compared to dry sunny stumps. 

[reride82]

If it were me, I'd get the saws to remove the material and chip(rent one for a day or two) it to compost it. You'll have lots of carbon from the mulching, so beg, borrow, or buy some nitrogen to layer into the pile(manure, dead animals, green vegetation, etc) then you'll have some awesome organic matter in 1-3 years depending how much you want to mess with the pile. Burning it tends to send most of your carbon up in smoke.

Levi

[stavebuyer]

Stumps take quite awhile to rot for some odd reason. It took 20 years for some box elder to rot out enough to remove by hand here. I kept bounding at them for years. But yet in the woods, 10 years after a clear cut any wood that laid on the ground was nothing but duff you could bust up with your boot. Softwood stumps are still persistent after 15 years. I have cedar stumps that are still hard/solid after 30 years.  Hardwood stumps were mostly gone in 15 years. When thinning with clearing saw, a nice spruce stump along your trail is nice for a seat on a rest break. ;D

I cleared off my garden by hand(west KY). Worked around the stumps. 4-5 years the maple and hickory gone. Red oak a couple years behind. White oak persisted the longest but what was left could be grubbed out with a small tractor in under 10 years. But KY things rot here pretty much year round.
Cruising timber here; Oak/Hickory forest the tops are pretty well gone in 5 years and most stumps in 10.

[aquinnk]

I've thought about going the mulcher route, but without a tractor it would be difficult for me to push such a large pile around to get it to compost, and then spread. 

[Walnut Beast]

Just get it mulched. No piles, no jacking around 

[Southside]

The amount of year round soil activity and resulting organic matter consumption in the south vs the far north east can not be compared.  That is good and bad.  Want your timber trash to break down - it's gone in a few years.  On the flip side if you leave your tilled soil with no cover crop - well then your top soil is also gone in a few years.  There is no deep winter sleep of the soil down this way.  

[mike_belben]

The land of everything that you dont want growing rapidly, and of everything you do want dying of bugs or blight.

[thecfarm]

Let me post a couple pictures of my pasture clearing.

This one had really nothing bigger than a 1½ feet across for trees. Yes there was a few clumps of white maple that made stumps 3 feet across. Most was no bigger than 1 foot. No before pictures, but you can see the tree line. This was thick grown up woods. I cut all the trees with a chain saw. I kept what I wanted for firewood and made a brush pile. I hauled all the trees to a brush pile and bushed the brush into a pile with the bucket. Most times I would only haul 2 trees to the pile. Anymore was just a tangled mess and hard to see and get at the limbs. I kept this clear with a trimmer and a lawn mower. I call the lawn mower my Mini Bushhog.  ;D  If I got a year out of one, I was doing good. Stumps are hard on mowers.
You can't see all the rocks in the picture. I have a 5 foot bush hog now. There are many places that I can't even fit between the rocks and there are even more that I can mow right over.


 

Than this one.



 
I cut all the trees I did not want, and kept this clear with a trimmer and a lawn mower.
I have no idea how stuff grows in AL. I am in ME and those stumps will put out suckers. It's a full time job to keep up on the new growth. And I am not talking about twice a year mowing this. I said a full time job. I did not have a bush hog at that time. And to tell you the truth I don't think it would of done much on the regrowth part. I was trimming off the suckers as soon as I could see some growth with a string trimmer. Yes, it took time, but I was cutting them way down to the stump. There would be nothing left when I got done. Than I would take the lawnmower to it a couple times a year to get all the other stuff that would try to grow. The first 2 years are the hardest, busiest, full time!!!! Takes a lot of time to keep up with it. After five years, grass starts to come back and I am just about done, now it's part time work.
Bigger stumps need to be recut too. As the ground settles around them, the stumps seem to grow.  :D  that takes time too.
I have a 3pt logging winch on the back of my 40hp tractor. On the small stuff, that I  did not want for fire wood, I would lay down a 8 foot chain and put the small trees on top of the chain. I could haul quite a bundle of small stuff that way. Probably 3 feet across.
Yes, it can be done by hand, but takes a lot of time that way. Just keep at it, full time, and don't say, I will get to it next week. The more you work at it, the quicker the job will get done.
In your case, it will not matter. I have some EWP, an easy 2 feet across at the stump that I cut down and I am still mowing around them more than 15 years later. I was able to get out about 5-6 last year. Still 5-6 left to mow around. And those stumps are still nice and hard. Red Oak will hang onto for years here too.

[kantuckid]

Fact: OP is 24 years old.
 Fact: Telling me at that age that I could have a nice garden spot in 5-10 years would not have been very logical :D
Fact: Pine trees don't put out suckers.
Fact: Livestock tromping around doesn't make a soil area better. I will agree that the buffalo did fertilize the praries but they also moved around a lot by habit.
Fact: A park-like area is not a garden spot as seen in pics above. Looks nice though.

I'm just glad to see someone young who takes an interest in having a garden. 
OP can PM me when that garden spots ready and I'll share some very interesting heirlooms seeds with him.