Wildlife Corridor

Planning (2021): After discussing many ways to create an interesting corridor for a human path with beneficial plant species, and walking the lower field many times we finally determined what our main goal was. Sometimes we start with more of a feel or aesthetic than the earth-based goal, this was one of those times. After determining that the area would be a wildlife corridor, we scoped out the start and end points, explored the slope and contour of the space, observed how water moved, and finally flagged it out.

Ground Preparations (2021): In the late spring we rented a tilling attachment for our tractor and followed the path where we wished to convert the mowed grass to a wildflower area. This broke up the existing grasses and addressed some of the compaction issues. 

Solarizing (2021): Immediately after tilling, we covered the entire swath with tightly tucked greenhouse plastic. The process of tucking the plastic into a hand dug slit in the earth was admittedly very tedious. At our scale, many of these steps tend to be. The sun, amplified by the plastic, essentially killed off the seedbank in this section of the field. We chose to do this so that the wildflower and meadow grass seeds we planted would have a chance to take hold. While the process of tilling and solarizing is quite aggressive and not friendly to beneficial organisms in the soil, it is organic and since the width of the area is minimal, we assume the beneficial organisms would be able to re-establish easily enough. Additionally, this is a one time step for this project and area.

Seed (2021): In the late summer, we uncovered the plastic (to use for other projects), and began seeding. We used mixed purchased from Ernst Seeds. After spreading these by hand, we gently raked them in (an easier sentence than action).

Cut Back (2022): At the recommendation of our seed supplier, we cut the plantings once they reached 18" down to 8".