Come to think of it…..I think I actually will open up that natural farming can of worms……

Natural farming is a method of planting gardens that was made popular by the same Japanese farmer that wrote “The One Straw Revolution”…..I would say that natural farming is a cousin to what we’re doing with natural food plots but its more like a brother or sister…..It’s the same overall concepts and principles….just with the finer details tweaked a little to accommodate deer and other wildlife instead of growing food for humans. It's where many of my ideas have stemmed from in doing a lot of what you see me doing. I’m pretty much just growing a “natural garden” for deer. I’m using plants that nature has provided me for these animals and I'm just “tending” to those plants. I’m just not doing it by hand like the natural farmers….I’m using my tractor to tend to it. One idea that I’ve talked about a couple times too that really needs to be given some thought too…..is that every plant isn’t designed to be a deer food and that’s ok. There’s other jobs that need doing within this idea of natural food plotting as a sister to natural farming. Like I was saying in the other post….I’d say that dang near 80% of the plants that grow in my field as well as the rest of the understory…they get browsed by deer. I can deal with that just fine. Those other 20% are still working for me too though and I can use them to serve a purpose as well. I’m bringing in everything the deer likes….not just the food. Healthy soil is one of the biggest things I'm bringing in because that's the foundation of where it all starts.

You just have to recognize what things the deer really like. Going around to dozens of properties tracking deer for folks……and seeing all of the different deer densities and such….I’ve seen a good sample size of “what deer like”……That’s what I’m trying to recreate…..The attributes of these properties that are making them great…..One big one is the amount of acreage in understory habitat similar to what you see me growing. It’s a little different because they’re mostly using fire and I’m small scale deer gardening….species may change and it may look a little different but the concepts all still remain the same. This is why I keep saying that I’m managing for deer….not humans…..Which one are you more concerned with? What humans want to see and do….or what the deer like? Deer don't care about "pretty"...…..