How to turn dry field into pasture?

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Pics of the green stuff. I recognize miners lettuce, clover, and a thin grass. Not sure what the other stuff is. Fingers for scale in some of the pictures.

The miners lettuce is very tall, up to our shins in some areas. It makes it very interesting to walk around as you can't see if there's a rock or hole, and it is very slippery too.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Mom's property has narrow leaf plantain, and inlaws have broad leaf plantain, so I'm thinking I should liberate some of their extra plants and put them here in the pasture, especially before they go to seed.

 

[Baymule]

Are the heart shaped leaves what you are calling miners lettuce? They look like wild violets to me. The last picture is chickweed. It is packed with vitamin C and minerals. I make salads with it. The sheep love it and hit my chickweed patch!

 

[Mini Horses]

Love all the shade!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Sunset view from the living room looking over the future pasture. Still more trees to take down to open up the view more. Going to plant trees that we can keep shorter lol.

 

[Stephine]

Doesn’t it look so nice in the spring? Yes, miners lettuce and chickweed - our meadow down by the creek looks similar right now. In my humble opinion there is no way you will be able to keep the pasture green through our long hot and dry season. It would take huge amounts of water (which is wasteful with our ongoing droughts) and even then the greens won’t be able to stand up to the heat. And definitely keep as many (healthy) trees as you can - trees will actually help cool the area directly around them and provide much needed shade. And tall established trees will hold up way better than smaller ones in the by now inevitable California wildfires.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

I'm definitely not planning on keeping it green with miners lettuce, that dies off in the heat. I'm trying to get this zone to be stuff goats/sheep can graze on and will stay green year round if irrigated. We are working on getting irrigation for our property, this spot is just downhill from our house so we will be keeping it green if we can.

We have permission from NID to set up an account, we just have to finalize how we are accessing the water. Right now we have been told we can access from the south west, but the canal is about 900' from the bottom corner of our parcel. So we would have to get an easement from the one neighbor and have a pump from the canal to push it uphill to our parcel, which will be ridiculously expensive. The same canal is also to the north and east of us, so I'm hoping we can get permission to access it from that direction (we will need to get easements through multiple parcels) and get our neighbors on board so all of us could get possibly a shared line and then all of us could water our properties.

 

[Stephine]

I'm definitely not planning on keeping it green with miners lettuce, that dies off in the heat. I'm trying to get this zone to be stuff goats/sheep can graze on and will stay green year round if irrigated. We are working on getting irrigation for our property, this spot is just downhill from our house so we will be keeping it green if we can.

We have permission from NID to set up an account, we just have to finalize how we are accessing the water. Right now we have been told we can access from the south west, but the canal is about 900' from the bottom corner of our parcel. So we would have to get an easement from the one neighbor and have a pump from the canal to push it uphill to our parcel, which will be ridiculously expensive. The same canal is also to the north and east of us, so I'm hoping we can get permission to access it from that direction (we will need to get easements through multiple parcels) and get our neighbors on board so all of us could get possibly a shared line and then all of us could water our properties.

Again, I didn’t think you wanted to keep it in miners lettuce, either. But I am saying that it is a loosing battle to go against the local conditions and keep a large area green and growing when everything around it dries up and goes dormant for the summer. I really doubt that you could make it happen and I think it is irresponsible to waste that much water - especially if all your neighbors go in on it, too. California in these parts in the summer is dry and brown and livestock eats hay until the first rain in the fall…

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Again, I didn’t think you wanted to keep it in miners lettuce, either. But I am saying that it is a loosing battle to go against the local conditions and keep a large area green and growing when everything around it dries up and goes dormant for the summer. I really doubt that you could make it happen and I think it is irresponsible to waste that much water - especially if all your neighbors go in on it, too. California in these parts in the summer is dry and brown and livestock eats hay until the first rain in the fall…

So, we should just let a large part of our properties, literally right next to our houses, go dry and dead, to fuel a wildfire? Sounds like a great plan.

 

[Stephine]

So, we should just let a large part of our properties, literally right next to our houses, go dry and dead, to fuel a wildfire? Sounds like a great plan.

No, what you do is you put your animals on it while it’s green, in winter. They will eat what they like, trample the rest. You can send them through again after things have dried to flatten the dry stuff left over. You make your „defensible space“ (I am sure you have heard about that, otherwise just google) around your home and outbuildings. You harden your buildings against wildfire (again, lots of recommendations from our fire fighting agencies). Then you‘re done. You just can’t water yourself out of the wildfire risk.