I was running irrigation lines and black weed barrier and all sorts of “fixes” to handle the drought times that hit here, and nothing worked well. Water lines – the black plastic piping that you pop your drizzler into – tend to attract voles, mice, rats, squirrels, etc. – to chew them when they too are thirsty. The black weed barrier simply overheated the soil and killed roots. All these tricks that work in other environments do NOT work here. So, because I want to grow orchards here – where trees grow just fine once started – I came up with this idea. You can see my 100 gal tank, I haul it around on the side-by-side, I have a “wand” with a 45 degree curve at the very end that easily slips into the 2″ pipe and sits there while I water for 1 minute a tree, each week. It works.

These pictures are in my Chinese Chestnut orchard. They seem to enjoy the heat and humidity, and get them going for two years, and they seem to tap into the groundwater and do just fine.

Chinese Chestnuts, you ask? Think of a good silvopasture tree and chestnuts, mulberry, honey locust all come to mind, and in this particular field, I have planted all 3, with a major emphasis on chestnut. Valuable wood potential, as well as a nut crop. Plus, the shade is the start of planting understory crops and having them succeed here. I have a smaller plot with American/Asian/Hybrid Persimmon, Allegheny Chinquapin, PawPaw, Melon Berry, Blackberry, American Plum – and the shade from the faster growers aids those that need some help from our sun.

I bought a piece of property that had been used mainly to run cattle, and it was simply acres of bahia grass – this is my way of trying to add some diversity.