Establishing new pasture perennials

Between ragweed shading the ground and me leaving one flock of broilers in the same pasture for three months, the soil there was pretty much bare.  So I decided to set the area aside for long term rejuvenation rather than trying to turn chickens back into it anytime soon.

After removing the ragweed (before it went to seed), we planted a combination of oats, alfalfa, Austrian winter peas, clover, and Kentucky bluegrass.  I have to admit that the combination of species is the result of me being over-excited and not thinking everything through.  I probably would have been better off simply planting bluegrass and clover for a solid spring pasture or a taller grass (timothy or orchardgrass) and alfalfa for a good summer pasture, leaving out the annuals altogether.  Live and learn!

Despite my enthusiastic mixing, the seedlings seem to be doing relatively well so far.  The bluegrass and clover seedlings are well represented beneath the taller oats and peas, although I can't quite tell if alfalfa is present or not.  The tricky part will be whether the dying oat leaves shade out the perennials too much over the winter, or whether they just treat the grass and clover to a quick influx of nitrogen to fuel their spring growth.

The other sticking point could be the alfalfa.  With most pasture plants, if you don't get a good stand, you can just reseed in the spring and fill in any gaps.  However, alfalfa  seedlings don't like to sprout anywhere near other alfalfa plants, so if just a few come up, we're out of luck.  On the other hand, I do have lots of other pastures to play with, so if the alfalfa fails here, I'll try again elsewhere.

Here are some statistics in case you want to follow my lead:

As you can see, seeds for perennial pasture plants are pricey.  But once you realize that you don't have to plant nearly as many of those tiny seeds, the cost for reseeding a small homestead chicken pasture is pretty reasonable.  Even if you don't have a big bare patch of ground like I did, you can overseed grass and clover into existing pastures.  And if you've missed the boat for fall planting, don't worry --- you have another window in the spring.