Clearing and creating new paddocks – dealing with ground asparagus weeds and paperbarks

It’s been a week of projects and I can tell you now I am chuffed about it. We’ve managed to tackle a few things this week, a sign that my husband is starting to feel better! He managed to get the cubby down and now we’re extending the garden beds – read more about that in the post here.

We also had our earthmover guy out finally, who we’ve been waiting so patiently for after unseasonal winter rain that totally put our clearing project to the side. He did a huge job for us backfilling the front paddock by the front dam to level it out for the fence and also knocking down 3 huge mounds that were left over from the old neighbours who used it to jump over with dirt bikes.

For this project specifically, we planned on splitting our remaining 4 acres into 3-4 seperate paddocks, in order to pasture rotate our horse for grazing. What made it so difficult was the density of the shrub and some of the weeds that have grown well under the canopy cover of the paperbarks.

I’m also quite funny about using glyphosate or dycamba in general, on land that we are going to use. Because the horse will be eventually grazing through here, I am less inclined to be outright poisoning these weeds just because I’m lazy to shovel the, out.

And that’s the thing. The asparagus fern and ground asparagus are a pain in my behind. The ground asparagus is worse I think, because it has this root base that is like a thick carpet underneath, and tubers that connect the base of the plants for far further than what the top weeding flower implies. The red berries are often eaten by birds and pooped out as they’re flying, so unfortunately despite your best intentions you could still get small outbreaks of the weed on your property.

We’ve hand removed a lot already. When we were building the stable we cleared a whole area the size of half an arena manually, just using shovels and digging underneath the thick carpet like matting. It’s hard work, but I actually think it’s the best way to do it because you’re sure to get each straggler that may be heading out to try sprout in a new place.

I think they also tend to prefer weedy, woodland areas where there is little direct sunlight, so hopefully the work done today clearing the back will work towards making this better in the future.

So hopefully the guy will be back this week to finish the other side, which is actually not too much but you can’t see it from the pics I provided because it got dark very quickly. We’ve already spoken with him about doing the rest of the fill by the front dam and finish off the arena in a month or so, so gives us still a few weeks to clean up the work he’s done now and burn it off and prepare the mulch and firewood piles as we’ve been doing with the rest of the clearing project.

Once that’s done we can then finish the holding/overnight paddock and finish the fencing where we need it internally and hopefully so,e of the projects will have taken more shape than what they did when we first imagined them.

There’s nothing better than being able to see ideas come to fruition, whether they be simple ones like clearing some bushland or backfilling sunken areas or making internal fences. Any work done on the homestead is worthwhile and useful., and the sense of accomplishment feels grand.

If you’re interested in seeing what else we do around the farm, make sure to keep reading and link in with our socials. We update regularly on the progress of our projects. You can also subscribe to our blog to make sure you get all the round-ups and updates first!