Barren hill

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rapidsfarm

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Hello! I am hoping someone can help come up with some ideas. Our land has a large sloped hill which would be perfect for growing blueberries or something similar. The problem is that the previous owners just dumped all the dirt and gravel from building on this hill, so now it is barren and starting to erode. I'd love to salvage the hill and turn into something pretty. Any ideas on to accomplish this? It is a rather steep hill (though the goats walk up it just fine).
 
Hello! I am hoping someone can help come up with some ideas. Our land has a large sloped hill which would be perfect for growing blueberries or something similar. The problem is that the previous owners just dumped all the dirt and gravel from building on this hill, so now it is barren and starting to erode. I'd love to salvage the hill and turn into something pretty. Any ideas on to accomplish this? It is a rather steep hill (though the goats walk up it just fine).

I'm going to move this to introductions , more people will see it.
Also maybe you can introduce yourself to the folks here.

Jim
 
You might consider terracing it. Winding back and forth down the hill will give you accessible planters and a pleasant path. Include a fence or just plant goat food. Welcome.
 
You might consider terracing it. Winding back and forth down the hill will give you accessible planters and a pleasant path. Include a fence or just plant goat food. Welcome.
Agreed.

I put in huegelcultures terraced down the hill. But learn from my mistakes and think about how you will maibtain it. I never thought I ever run anything other than a weed wacker and spaced the boxes with a narrow path between them. But now @Firepolice271 run a lawn tractor around the edges but tractor will not fit between them.

Ben
 
I have a hillside like that on my place and I planted Vinca major on it. It shoots out runners and takes over quickly, low growing and covered with pretty blue flowers all summer and green ground cover in the winter when everything else is brown.
I had look it up.

vincamajor15.jpg

Nice

Ben
 
Greetings from S.W. Oregon, we raised goats for a few years, loved them but they will do a number on plant life, more than likely blueberries would be high on their list. I have considered planting them on the hill behind our home, terracing is what I wanted to do and the soil around here is perfect for blueberries as it is acidic. As it is I planted almond trees, they seem to be doing okay but since they are like apricots, they are subject to leaf curl, which has effected some of the peach trees I've planted. You probably ought to do some soil tests, a lot of plants and trees tend to like acid soils, many of the fruit trees I've planted around our property have done very well considering I haven't done much more than digging a hole and putting a sapling in it, we have at least 5 apple trees that started on their own from just throwing apple cores on the ground in the chicken yard. Blueberries don't care if the ground is steep, when I lived in Washington, I used to hike in the Cascade mountains just north and east of Seattle to fish the mountain lakes and many of those lakes were surrounded by wild blueberries growing on steep slopes.
 
I had look it up.

View attachment 57633
Nice

Ben
Caution, we have that stuff growing on the bank that's just below our deck, that stuff takes over like a wild fire, but it is good for holding the soil and stopping erosion, we call that plant Periwinkle, I even took some of those vines up to our spring source to hold the soil in there and they took off like crazy. They are a little less vine producing than St. Johns Wort, those roots get really thick.
 
A warm welcome from Alaska! What is your climate/location? That might help with recommendations on ground cover. Certainly a terrace works in most climates!
 
Hey! Thanks everyone. We are up here in Zone 3. Lots of snow.

Terracing is a good idea. I'll have to do some research as I haven't done anything like that before. Some kind of vine is nice too...anything to establish the soil and prevent the eroision.
 
Welcome @rapidsfarm! Glad to have you here!

I think plantings would help with your erosion - even the blueberries you mention, or perhaps huckleberries or saskatoons, would help with erosion once they're established (getting them to that point would be the issue).

But I would humbly (or not so humbly) beg you to please consider native, non-invasive species over things like periwinkle and vetch. Both of those plants are known to take over - particularly vetch, which is rapidly becoming an issue. Did you know that multiflora rose was once touted as excellent for erosion? Gov. agencies planted and promoted it. Now they're incentivizing people to eliminate it. Same with honeysuckle.

If you're in the U.S., I would recommend checking out your county's Soil & Water Conservation office. I've worked with them in two counties here in OH, and both locations have been extremely helpful. Now, it was often out of this office that invasive non-natives were promoted in the past - but these days they are often quite knowledgeable in knowing what local natives can help you out.

You mentioned that soil was dumped rather unattractively. I would recommend a soil test. That can often be done through your county's Extension Office (again, assuming you're in the U.S.), usually for a reasonable price (and their tests are much more detailed than the simple soil test kits you can buy at the big box store garden centers). I'm guessing none of that dirt dump is topsoil. You may need to start with a nurse plant that can quickly establish in poor soils and hold down the fort, so to speak, while also planting something with deeper roots that takes longer to get established.

Your state's Department of Natural Resources may have a listing of native species that you could look at, as well. Also, if you have any Nature Conservancy properties near you, sometimes they publish a "plant list" for their individual nature preserves, and those are good springboards of information for further research.
 
Hey! Thanks everyone. We are up here in Zone 3. Lots of snow.

Terracing is a good idea. I'll have to do some research as I haven't done anything like that before. Some kind of vine is nice too...anything to establish the soil and prevent the eroision.

I‘m zone 3, so blueberries, raspberries, low bush cranberries, crowberries and the like all crow well. It will take some time to get them established. Terracing could help and can get expensive unless you have natural rock you can use laying around. We have been uses rock and over the course of time the terrace has come together. My wife made one hill with pretty much all of the above mixed in with fireweed and poppies and it has turned out real pretty. We got blueberries and low bush cranberries really for the first time this year after about 6 years of work. Not a whole lot, but enough that it gives us promise of better seasons ahead.
 
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