A Barren Wasteland

Most of our pasture has lush, green grass.  The cows and goats and chickens roam on it and forage.  Summer rainfall has given the animals plenty of grass to eat on and I'm thankful for that.

The photo above me, while it shows the majority of the pasture are like John Conlee's "Rose Colored Glasses" that "show only the beauty, 'cause they hide all the truth!"  When I turn around and take a photo behind me, here's what you see:

A barren wasteland!  This area had a thick cover of bermuda-bahai grass mix a couple of years ago.  Then things changed.  We burned numerous bonfires in this area that killed a portion of grass.  Then the 100 or so chickens we have roaming on the land began scratching, making their dust baths, and plucking out every single blade of grass from the ground. 

I truly want to reclaim this area to the grassy area it once was.  Barren soil is unnatural and unhealthy.  In fact, if you look at nature, it hardly ever occurs unless something is out of balance.  Even forest floors are covered with leaves, rotting logs, and understory.  It is time to try to get grass growing here again and I know just where to find the grass to plant - IN MY GARDEN!

Bermuda grass is a wonderful thing in the pasture!  It is a horrible week in the garden.  It spreads out its rhizomes and will quickly cover the garden.  That is exactly what I'm hoping it will do to my barren wasteland.  You can see the thick bermuda on the edge of the garden in the photo below:

The abundant rain in the past few days allowed me to get in the garden on Saturday and pull up 3 full 5 gallon buckets of bermuda sprigs with all roots attached.  I packed the buckets full and tight to ensure that I had as much bermuda grass as possible.

Then I walked out to the barren wasteland with the buckets and a shovel and I began to make long trenches with the shovel and began to "sprig" the bermuda into the trenches.  I quickly covered the roots and the rain began falling.

I think I made a pretty good start.  Hopefully the grass will take and will begin stretching its rhizomes out and covering the barren soil.  To give the grass a little breathing room, I erected an electrified net all around it to keep the chickens out while the grass gets a head start.

Hopefully, I'll be able to report that the grass has made a foothold and then we can expand from there and make the area around the barn and hen house lush and green instead of barren and brown.