Farm Plan - Forest Future

Do I have future plans in regard to there forest? Well, I plan to keep a woods on the farm. That's for certain. Being a homestead style farm, the trees are an important asset. 

I plan to keep the woods predominately ohia trees. There's a couple endemic varieties that have been pointed out to me, so they will be encouraged to stay too. While there are several feral guavas in the pastures, I plan to add more to those pasture areas that are lacking them. Both the donkey and the sheep enjoy the fruits. There's a few citrus trees in the pastures too and I plan to add more. Again, the livestock eagerly clean up the fruits. 

The one grove of strawberry guavas that I have will be slightly expanded. I use the poles for a variety of tasks and could use more. So I will encourage their spread to another 100' x 100' area. But I will restrict them to that one section. They tend to spread and fill in pretty densely if left to their own devices. So it's a tree that needs to be managed. One added asset of these trees is that they create a visual block between us and the neighboring property. I value the privacy factor. 

The mature eucalyptus on the farm will gradually be eliminated. They have proven to be too dangerous during windstorm. But I will encourage young trees to continue to grow here, which will be harvested when they attain "pole size". Because mature eucalyptus live all around us in the neighborhood, I will continue to see new seedlings growing each year. I won't need to keep my own giant "mother" tree. 

As needed for projects, select trees will be harvested for fence posts, pole building, and crafting. Young trees will be encouraged to replace those that were harvested. I don't need much in the way of firewood, so wind blown branches and twigs, plus trash trees will satisfy my firewood needs. 

The trees around the residential area will stay. They block the storm winds. They will be trimmed from the to time to remove weak limbs or branches stretching toward the roof. The only tall trees allowed near the buildings will be ohia because they do fine in the storms. Problem trees, such as jacaranda, mango, albizia, and eucalyptus, have already been removed from around the residential area. We've already seen problems with these trees shedding limbs or crashing down. 

I don't foresee the future need to remove sections of woods in order to open more areas for vegetable planting. What I have now should suffice. And while I plan to improve the pastures, massive tree removal will not be required for that. If the secret garden area gets expanded, the big trees will still remain with only the smaller or trashy trees pruned out. 

So it is pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-got when it comes to the forest here. Just some tweaking -- some trees removed, some trees added.