With hunting season open we want to attract deer into one spot where we can easily hunt them. A way to do this is to build a feeding area that will attract deer. Since I do not want them to eat from my fenced in area, I must plant some other food in an open area to make them interested near where my hunting blind is set up.
First we must cut back the grass, the area where we want to put down seed needs a fresh area to grow. Maybe we could have just tilled it but we decided to mow it first.
We can see half the field cut and the other is still up. Once all the grass has been cut, now we get ready to till up the soil. The smell of fresh cut fields is quite amazing. If you thought a front yard smells good after being cut try out a meadow.. lol
The bag says no till, but if you do till it works much much better. I saw some comparisons of people just throwing seed down without tilling and it was night and day difference. So we do not mind putting in a little more work to get a good result.
We can see this has many plants in it deer like, such as daikon radish, perennial clover, ryegrass and forage rape. Bought this bag on amazon, its formulated to attract deer so we shall see.
The workshop was a bit of a mess, so we needed to get the tiller out using the skid steer. Recently I bought some small tow straps, worked great for this. And the forks were once again a very useful attachment for the skid steer.
Once we got the tiller to the door, we hooked it up to the tractor.
Lifting it up its ready to go, off to the fields. This tiller will make quick work of the soil, we also have push version for smaller projects.
By tilling up the dirt it stops the native grasses from coming up right after we cut, that may be too much competition for the seedlings. So by tilling it up everything gets a fresh start.
This was the first time we used the tractor mounted tiller, and it did a great job.. Make the dirt very fluffy down a few inches.
With the fields ready for seed, we placed them in buckets and walked the fields flinging them out.
Next is to press the seeds in the ground. Without that the seeds may blow away or not get enough soil contact to sprout well.
I go get my seed roller, a wheel that has water inside. It weighs a few hundred pounds when filled with water. I drag it behind the UTV and press the seeds in the ground.
Me riding on the UTV, rolling the seeds into the ground.
Now we wait for some good rains, and hope the birds do not eat all the seeds.. Wish that hawk was already living here.. We saw lots of doves out in the field eating the seeds. Next time we seed, we are gonna be dove hunting in the food plot while they try to eat the seeds.. lol
But even if many of the birds got the seeds I think some will germinate, the other half of the luck factor is getting decent rains to water all the new seeds. As watering an entire 1/4 acre by hand is a bit rough. Thats fine, even if they do not take I can try again with another bag when we are expecting more rain.