We are so glad we found out about this course which is offered by the county extension program. It ran over 2 sessions which were 2.5 hours each. A link to the course is provided below:

https://extension.umd.edu/woodland/woods-your-backyard

Jonathan Kays spoke for the most part; but he had other people come in to talk about converting turf to forest, attracting wildlife to the backyard forest and invasive species. I cannot tell enough good things about the sessions. The handouts given during the course are thoughtfully written. They even provided a book on identifying a forest tree based on the leaf type. It is kind of addictive and we hope to identify and mark as many trees on our property as possible.

The course itself introduced us to the world of succession, wildlife habitats, uses of backyard woods, recreation possibilities; water sources, planning, forest thinning, invasive versus native species; common plants/trees, forest stewardship programs for small forest owners (1-10acres) and resources to get saplings/mapping software/soil information. All the speakers were very knowledgeable and passionate about forest conservation. Most of them were land owners themselves and were actually living what they were preaching. The terrain navigator software recommended by the ‘Forests for the Bay’ website is very useful and is something we hope to use to tag and locate features/markers on our land. Even though we plan on getting a forest officer to come to our land and talk to us individually on how to protect and utilize the forest on our land; the course opened our eyes to the issues involved. Now we feel better prepared to ask the forest officer questions and to maximize the use of the time we have with him.

During the course we had to complete an assignment which listed various activities with the ultimate aim of having a plan and schedule for things we need to do for the upkeep of our forest. I have attached the workbook below. Since our priority is to build the house, vegetable and fruit garden, we will work on the forest related activities on an as-possible basis for the first 3 years. Our first and foremost item on that list would be to get some of the invasive species that are growing on our land under control – Japanese stillgrass and Tree-of-Heaven.

I have also added a slideshow below of our visit to the Ag research center in Derwood, MD. We hope to be attending an evening course there from Jan-April that is about Small Farms. This would prepare us well for planting our vegetables and herbs next year. A link to the course is provided below:

https://extension.umd.edu/montgomery-county/agriculture/small-farm-program

#visit #extension

[embeddoc url=”https://peachcobblair.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/AlanGirijaLandActivities.xlsx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft”]

#learning #visit #forest #farming