I’ve noticed that the grass is greenest…under my Dodge PowerWagon.

I think that the shade of the truck is helping keep water in the soil instead of evaporating.

This theory agrees with a permaculture principle known as “edges”.  The idea is that you can find a greater number of plants on the edge of a meadow than in the middle of the meadow or in the forest.  There’s a greater opportunity due to the different shade/light, water and nutrients.

I figured I would try to create some edges to speed the process of turning my land into pasture.

The tractor isn’t running, so I thought I would try a different approach.  I’m using hog panels and trumpet creeper.

The plan is that the creeper will grow on the panel and provide shade.

I’ve put up a couple of these so far.  I put a sprinkler on the T-post when I water.

I’ve seeded clover, alfalfa, a bunch of flowers and radishes around the panels.

Here are the results so far…

I’m excited to see how things turn out next spring.

–JS