The Backward Approach To Starting On Land

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]What's going on everyone? I'm Brandon and this is the Green in the desert project.

[00:00:10]Looks like a little rain.

[00:00:16]It's really starting to come down now.

[00:00:22]Now, from talking with various land owners and other people with property throughout the years, there's really one thing I know that most people are always excited for or at least want to get started in, and that's the gardening scene. With all the fruits and vegetables and all the fruit trees and such, or really the food forest concept overall that a lot of people want to implement onto their own landscapes. And so I really think this is one key concept or aspect that if you're just starting out on a landscape, this really might be something of consideration before constructing placing any shipping containers or really kind of starting the whole journey overall. And that's really why when I talk to people, I do try to explain or ask the question, what are your values and what are your goals overall? because this really is going to play a huge part because of how you develop things on the landscape over time. But what makes it really helpful is if we have a plan of action or at least some ideas of what exactly we want to include on our landscape, which could be livestock, chickens, goats, but of course the garden space, but then really considering green houses, storage sheds, water storage areas, pump houses, and such. That's why it's really just my opinion at least that we want to start slow on these projects because of the different ideas that we're going to have and want to implement. But certain parts can be challenging because if we're just focusing on the structure aspect, we might be considering only the best location on our landscape for where to put the structure and essentially expanding out from there. Hold on. The wind. We got the wind. This is what you get in the high mountain. You get wind.

[00:02:02]And if we're just having a focus on where we're placing structures, we might actually skip over just the overall development of the property. And I really more so just mean that we might skip over looking at the potential garden spots or where we're going to be planting fruit trees and such, but also where we're placing livestock and water like I had said. So really part of my thinking is partly that when we're first looking at landscapes or even if we have a piece of property already, this might be looking at the garden space or where we're potentially going to be growing trees, shrubs, and different bushes for production. Looking at our landscape through this lens might actually dictate placing things in a different spot on the location because if we're wanting optimal sunlight, good water penetration, or just a really convenient spot overall, then that's going to also dictate where we might want to construct the water storage area or a greenhouse or a living structure. And I guess for myself, that's really where finding a lot more of these open areas or places that are just easier to work with on the landscape, not only just makes things easier overall because there's less things to move or trees to cut down, but also if we're trying to grow more food and just vegetation overall, we can come to this area. This is the second rain garden area that I'm at. I got to put my sunglasses on. So that's where we can come to the rain garden area and that's where this was previously just open bare lots of sheet flow coming through this area and now it's been constructed with a sizable swale that's now stopping a good amount of that sheet flow and constructing the little hybrid terrace garden in the deepest part of the swale.

[00:03:48]Now we've got all of that water that previously was sheet flowing now being stopped and slowed but more so concentrated into this terrace portion or this lower terrace so that we get that much more water penetration but then it just makes it optimized for whatever we want to grow in here. So, knowing that this spot gets the most amount of water, and knowing that this is the lowest spot, too, I've created kind of a microclimate you could think of, of heavier moisture, more protection from the wind and just the elements overall. And then rock surrounding to kind of prevent further erosion or any more of the sediment and organic material flying away kind of thing. But then also mulching and compost has been laid down. So, if most people's top priority on their landscape is going to be gardening or growing food or fruit trees and such, looking at the right spots on your landscape for those potential garden areas might be a way better option at looking at things and then trying to understand where a structure might be placed and kind of working with the landscape. And that's why I'm really just an advocate about working with the landscape and trying to disturb it as minimal as possible. So working with these open spaces between the trees has been a really big factor in how things have developed on my landscape at least. But it's also because I am considering permaculture zoning. So when we're talking about zone 0, zone 1 2 3 and four. That's essentially where in zone zero there is the initial first rain garden that was constructed. And then it's in zone one that I have the second rain garden as well. So both of these are just really convenient and easy to get to overall.

[00:05:28]but they're also more exposed areas that do also get a little bit of shade because of the surrounding juniper trees. But at the same time, there's not a lot of competition out here. So, it makes it kind of optimal for planting more trees and kind of implementing more of the silva culture or the centropic silva culture approach. And I don't want to forget to mention either that in between both of the rain gardens, that's where the multiple rain catchment pools have been placed in between the two rain gardens. So in that way it makes it easier for watering in between these. So I know everyone's not going to design things the same way and really this concept doesn't apply to everyone at that. And to maybe just give a way better example I think just coming to the northern portion here on the landscape because I actually have some plans on this specific section at least.

[00:06:19]So, at first we might look at things through the lens of where we might place a structure. And we're going to be looking at the different views, the different aesthetic appeals that it has to us coming out our front door and such like that. That's really something we do want to keep in mind and not completely disregard because it's still about being flexible and adjustable. So, if there's a prime spot for a structure or say a pump house or anything like that, then we do want to take advantage of it. But if we just look at things through the garden lens and maybe through the rainwater harvesting lens, it's really going to be looking at first on kind of the topography of the overall area.

[00:06:57]Understanding if we want to implement earthworks or just simple raised garden beds. How do we want to design the garden area? That's one essential key feature to know, I think, for sure, because there's going to be a way different layout compared to doing earthworks that are on contour for garden spaces and such compared to just the traditional raised beds, rectangles, and such like that that we create all these different pathways and stuff. But either way, depending on the kind of design that we want to implement on the landscape, we could still just imagine the garden area, the different fruit trees or different shrubs and bushes or vegetation that we want to plant in the area. Just having a little bit of an outlook beyond just coming out the front door or coming out of a greenhouse and imagining that. We really want to get a bigger full picture of what we're coming outside into. Just what kind of design features we're going to be coming out to, how we imagine we're going to be producing food, or just how we imagine the living or just the day-to-day activity that's going on around here.

[00:08:01]You could almost think that the structure, the gardening, the livestock, all these different concepts on a homestead or a landscape, these all essentially can be symbiotic in themselves because we can essentially design these concepts to intertwine. And instead of designing things separately or one at a time, we can do the multistacking kind of method and combine all of these concepts into one ordeal or just a smaller package that we can essentially expand upon. but also accomplish a lot of these different goals at the same time. So, it is really almost designing for structure, for garden, for livestock, just the whole ordeal of what we imagine and what we're kind of envisioning for the landscape overall. So that's where the example on my landscape at least I talked about future plans for this northern portion which I'll get into in a future episode.

[00:08:52]But essentially that's where a lot of the different earth works have come into play not only for optimizing in rainwater catchment and growing trees and getting all the vegetation started.

[00:09:04]But it's also been considered because I'm also doing the rotational grazing with the animals and the chickens. That means I'm going to have to leave space and pathways so that I'm able to maneuver all of the animals, but also making it easier and convenient because I don't want to have necessarily a big maze or anything like that. So really for my own planning, at least on my landscape, it's been a lot of organizing and designing and just kind of considering the whole picture. And that's where the rotational grazing, knowing and understanding how much space I'm going to need and just kind of the overall goal that I'm shooting for.

[00:09:43]That's really somewhere where I could have started from initially just to understand what area I needed, but I essentially could have just started from the goats and expanded outwardly in how I design things, which I partly did that. But it's also considering wanting to produce food. So creating more of a food forest and then it's combining restoring the landscape but also providing for the animals and just really being in tune with the whole natural cycle of things around here.

[00:10:13]Hopefully some of that made sense at least.

[00:10:22]I think really that's why it's important to me at least just because of the difference of ecosystems or microclimates you could think on my landscape here because the approach that I'm having to take between the south portion and the north portion is very different. There's similarities but there's differences in the approach overall. So really understanding our whole landscape just overall is super important so that we know just kind of the obstacles, the pros, the cons, specific areas we have interest in or potential ideas that we want to expand upon in those areas. So essentially, that's why I've said in previous episodes that we really want to have an investigator kind of mindset just for the sense of investigating our landscapes and finding all the different clues and really understanding the landscape so that we understand more about ourselves, our own values, our own goals, the ideas, and just the overall vision that we have for the property that we're striving for at least.

[00:11:24]Now, I do want to point out that it's not going to be for all landscapes, especially when it comes to the gardening. We're really going to take into account the weather patterns, the temperature swings, just the elements overall that we're having to work with, which that might really play into where we place our gardens. And just for the example even where I planted a new plum and a new cherry tree, but then last year I had planted the two apple rootstock in this terrace area. And we can see that there's all this shade right here that essentially is going to help keep this area nice and cool at least for a good portion of the day. So, we can really work with the different parts of our landscape from the open spots to the more shaded spots. And that really is going to depend on the kind of vegetation that we want to grow because obviously some stuff is not going to like being right out in the middle or all out in the open getting that full sun. So even right here, this terrace example could be something that is expanded upon as a starting point knowing that there's fruit trees here and essentially a garden space, but also the water catchment. So now expanding outward from this area even now we could essentially plan out further the different structures that we want around this area. And that's really just considering that if this is going to be the main focus, we want this area to be convenient if we're going to be wanting to go to it or check up on the garden for watering or anything on the daily.

[00:12:53]So that's where it kind of combines just all of the elements in the sense of planning the garden bed, then understanding perhaps maybe the structure placements and then understanding our pathways that we can incorporate for easy access to not only the garden but the structures. and then everywhere else around the landscape too. And that's where it just goes even further because it depends on the design and just our overall goals because in that sense we can plan out the structures in a way that also contribute to harvesting the rainwater that would empty into this water basin. But then also if we're incorporating the rainwater harvesting structures then we can actually design our pathways and essentially just this whole area for optimizing and rain catchment but also for any extra water to go towards the basin which will essentially be used for the garden area and just repeating the cycle here. But that's the beauty of my landscape at least is that there's kind of all these separate little ecosystems that are going on. Separate little microclimates you could think.

[00:14:01]Nice and windy. I talked in previous episodes about the fence line and constructing the living fence actually with the catclawacia. So that's actually been something really exciting to see this experiment. And I've got three three or four little sprouts of the catclawacia starting to pop up on the fence line.

[00:14:39]So if you haven't watched that, so if you haven't watched that episode, go ahead and watch that one after this one.

[00:14:44]So essentially too, that's where on the fence line, that's why I've started planting the catclawacas on this whole southern portion of the landscape. And it's because of the southern exposure.

[00:14:56]It creates this whole separate little microclimate, just as I've talked about in previous episodes about how different it is on the south portion compared to the north. Essentially, I can work with the southern portion in a certain way and plant certain vegetation and just a little bit experiment with what I can grow on this side of the property. So with the cat claws even coming from a hotter and drier location and lower elevation, that's why I've tried to strategize at least trying to plant a lot more of the native trees like the catclaw, but also the honeyloust and planting those in a way to hopefully capitalize on this kind of microclimate that's going on here, at least because of the exposure that it has. So hopefully mimicking a little bit where these trees are coming from is kind of the fingers crossed on this. I think it's ideal that we need to be honest and truthful about our landscapes, our goals, our dreams, what we're striving for. That's why I really think that understanding ourselves with our goals, our values, and just our overall ideas, this is what I think makes it important for understanding our landscape overall and just what we're striving for.

[00:16:08]Because the fact of the matter is that there's going to be work on any landscape or any homestead. And we have to be truthful and honest with ourselves in the duties or the tasks that we're willing to take on and willing to handle. And really understanding that all of these different tasks or chores and whatnot, a lot of these things need to be done. And it's a necessity not just because it's essential for our own goals and how we want to live or be on the homestead or our landscape, but it's important just for the livestock sake.

[00:16:40]But I think it's really important to know that the tasks and everything that is required on a homestead or a landscape, these essentially aren't negotiables because if we're going to be taking on the challenge or the responsibilities of taking care of animals, trying to grow gardens, or just build out a homestead overall, the importance comes in with being honest in knowing that these are responsibilities that we need to actually understand that we probably want these things to be joyful for ourselves. We don't want tasks or anything else around a homestead or a landscape to become a burden, become stressful and overwhelming and essentially just create the mindset of not wanting to do it. So, you better be prepared for all this homesteading and landscape restoration stuff because the nature don't lie.

[00:17:36]the truth as it wants to be known. It's the secrets that lay underneath all the lies. They're the shimmering glint that they hold in their eyes. They'll tell you their stories of a dream that was taken of crying inside for life that was staying. But notice the tune of the voice that is spoken. You'll find that the mind and the senses are broken. It's a twisted delusion not many can see.

[00:17:59]It's a lack of awareness and accountability. The duties neglected only done for a show to prove to the world that they shine and they glow.

[00:18:09]When the curtain comes down and the crowd disappears and actors fine mask makes a leave with the tears shadow breaks loose and the truth is revealed.

[00:18:18]A battered broke child that had never been healed. Where survival is key and the focus on eye keeps them from seeing THE OTHER NEARBY. BRO, ORGANICS, peeling back the mess, healing the damage. A different kind of task. We move from the spotlight and stepping into earth to give broken pieces a second new birth.

[00:18:39]Move past the mirror. LOOK PAST THE EYE WITH TREE ORGANICS. The nature don't lie.