Very interesting project. Pretty remarkable to see what can be done, but as you said, the locals have to be committed. All the best with your own project there!
Finally figured out that the best thing to do here on the hilly spots, is cut down a strip of trees low to the ground and unroll a round bale of hay on it to hold the humus & topsoil in place while seeding it at the same time. Our meat goats will eat some of it and fertilize it. Once they’ve soiled it too much, they don’t want to eat it, naturally. That leaves enough still in place.
Probably 20-30 trees of various sizes to cut down to unroll one bale. I’m leaving the nicer, bigger, acorn & hickory nut producing trees. Most of the hills slant South and I don’t want full sun on those South facing slopes as that’s where the winds come from in warm/hot weather. Keep the ground partially shaded and the breeze will be cooler.
Where I drove around the perimeter 100 times on the tractor to put up the fence, I lost three inches of top soil on very rocky hills. Now I have a bunch of rocks to drive over, some very pointy. Don’t want to do that to the rest. I’ll have to dump some gravel over the bad spots and I know from our driveway that grass will grow in gravel once it catches enough humus.
I’m in the Ozarks, hence the rockiness but I did find a small piece of land with 1-2 foot deep top soil on the 4 acre flat part. USDA Web Soil Survey calls it Prime Farmland, clayey loam. Took us two years to find it. Most small pieces are real bad. Concrete for soil, North or West facing elevations, no flat areas, no utilities running right down the road, no county/state road maintenance. We found one that would have been $14k to bring power in. This one is close to the big phone/dsl junction box with a fence around it and it’s own electric service so our dsl is as strong as downtown. Didn’t know that benefit until we had phone/dsl installed.
Should have started all this when I was 25, not 45. Been her ten years so make that 55.