Why This Is The First Thing To Do On New Land

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:02]Hey everybody, welcome back to the cabin. Standing over my mushroom logs.

[00:00:06]People ask me about this so often. What happened to the mushroom logs that I inoculated? And I'm going to find the original video. And just a flashback here to me inoculating them. So, drilling these holes and putting plugs, mushroom spawn plugs into them. This is many years later. I saw a couple here the other day walking back to the workshop here and uh came back just right now to see what condition those were in and they're they just flushed out. So we had a major rain and then hot day hot day today and uh they just flushed out like crazy. So I'm going to pick these and then we'll talk about what to do when you first arrive on a property or first purchase a property.

[00:00:49]What to do for growing food. I've done it many times now and there's a sequence of events or sequence of actions that you should do in order to uh prepare for the future so you make the right decisions and start producing food as soon as possible. So, I'm going to pick these and I'll show you how many I'm going to get. Some of them will probably be past their prime. So, if they're too wet or sluggy or uh just starting to rot, I'm just going to leave those. So, I'll grab the good ones.

[00:01:27]Beautiful.

[00:01:36]So, like I've mentioned, I've started over so many times. So, I would have had a garden at my parents house when I was young. Then um our moonstone house.

[00:01:48]So that's uh well the first house my wife and I when we bought our first house, we got married, we moved into that house that summer and started growing things and then we moved to the other small town, the bigger house and we lived there for 20 years. Then I had my property that I bought when I was 17. Well, the second property bought when I was 19.

[00:02:10]Had a small garden there. So I had to test the soil. was very different than anything else that I've had uh before and after. It was very was a clay low clay spot and one opening um in the field which I think it had been stripped off. I think it had been a bit of a I don't know I don't think it was a quarry but it was developed property somebody bought it divided it and I think they stripped the top soil off and sold it.

[00:02:35]So it was clay in the field and then it was forest just like this. And then uh last cabin. So the one that I had the neighbor problems at sold that. So I had gardens there. Two separate areas. And then this place. And then of course the cabin where Cali got trapped in the uh corral. My buddy calls it a moose corral. That half acre, quarter acre, more than a quarter of an acre. Probably a third of an acre to half an acre.

[00:03:05]That's u completely different than this spot. So, obviously the first thing if it's raw land and you don't even have structures built, you have to figure out where they're going first. But once that's determined, I I'll do another video on that. I actually have shown that in the past, like how I chose the sites that I did build my my cabins on.

[00:03:23]I haven't talked about this house, how I how I laid this out, but first thing I do is look at the property overall, figure out where the access is, of course, but then what's the best uh orientation for the buildings based on the sun. I like to have as many windows facing south because we're in the northern hemisphere and our cold season is longer than our warm season. So, we want as much light gathering and heat gathering as we can. So, I try to position all the windows to the south.

[00:03:50]And then on the north, that's where I like to have a bedroom so that it's dark and cooler. So, once that's established though, I I move on to the garden areas and figure out where I can grow food. So again, south facing.

[00:04:05]This being a raw forest of thick forest.

[00:04:08]When we arrived here, first thing I had to do is figure out where a nice level spot is that I could get a big enough garden put in. But what um was the sun orientation and how long I could how many hours of sunlight I can get each day. So this was flat, almost flat. So this is the highest point of the property and it's got deeper soils and it's more deciduous. So there's no conifer canopy immediately here, which means that the sun comes in here nicely during a lot longer part of the day.

[00:04:40]Problem is it sloped gently and then steeply to the northwest, which is the worst orientation for growing food. So I ended up Well, I'll show you some flashbacks of how I created this. This was a hoogle mound, a a mound of logs all the way along here. Then across here, I had another big hoogle culture mount that was all logs and organic material that was running east west so that the sun could shine on a longer a bigger surface area, especially with that slope on the mound itself. And then I ended up moving that and pushing it all over to the that northwest side and trying to level the ground out. So, I actually used a tractor to level it out.

[00:05:26]Push all the logs and all that extra soil onto that. Now, it's a pretty steep drop off, but this area is level.

[00:05:34]Getting 8 hours of sunlight is pretty important as far as growing most vegetables and and fruit. So, clearing trees back far enough that I could get sunlight for those 8 hours plus meant that um like this area gets shaded.

[00:05:51]Well, it's shaded long in the morning.

[00:05:53]Like, sunlight doesn't even hit this section till about 11:00. But then it gets warmer sunlight because the afternoon sun is hotter than the morning sun. So, it's beating down in here right now and it's quite warm here. So, I tend to put crops that like tomatoes along here would do well because it likes that afternoon heat. Now, when the sun crests these trees, it shines down into the orchard which is on the north slope. So that stuff is slower growing because of that. Not only because it is on the the northwest slope, but it also means that sun is because the plants are like this.

[00:06:31]The sun is like barely hitting them for a lot of the day. Then by the time it gets over there in the afternoon, it gets behind those other trees. So it's not um ideal for growing fruit and vegetables. Now things are doing fine because northern latitude we get longer daylight, longer days and uh we end up getting those 8 hours plus regardless for most of the season at least the peak like from the summer solstice like a month on either side of that. So around June 20th, 21st, but then later in the season as the sun starts dropping lower on the horizon here and uh shorter days, we get just barely enough sunlight to ripen things like squash that need longer season, longer growing more growing days. And then tomatoes, we have a hard time ripening them um in the summer. It ends up end they end up being available in like October, sometimes even November. I'm still harvesting tomatoes. So yeah, first thing I do when I get to a property, figure out where the structures are going, figure out where the flat area is that's facing south. In my case, because I'm on the northern hemisphere, water access is important, but it's not something that you can usually it's harder to uh work around the water source. The sun orientation and the level lot is is more important because you're going to have to probably bring in water from somewhere anyway. In our case here, we have two wells for redundancy. Again, talking about that two is one, one is none. We have two drilled wells. One's 50 ft deep and one's 250 ft deep and pristine water. So, um I have access to that and I've got a water pump hooked up to electricity, uh pressure pump so that we can um irrigate this garden. At the cabin around that garden, it's the stream, but it's really acidic. So, I try to use as much rain water as I can to water that garden. Um, but the stream is year round, so at least I can pump water, and I do pump that into the garden when it gets really dry. But like I said, it's pretty acidic, so I have to offset that with ash. It like um wood ash and lime. I've actually been buying some bags of lime. So, speaking of that, what I'm holding here is a soil tester.

[00:08:50]So, that gets stepped on and I'll just do it quickly.

[00:08:57]of course angle rock. That's the other thing.

[00:09:04]Well, anyway, so that goes into where I put you put that into a clean bag. Take that to your local, what do you call them? Most serious soil extension. We have a a public quarry that I get my gravel and soil from and they actually do testing there. Not public, a private one. So that's u where I take my samples. So that's the next thing you're going to do after you choose the garden location. Of course you need to clear it. In my case, if you're in a forest, you have to clear it to get the uh sun orientation and the days of hours of sunlight that you need.

[00:09:42]But then you need to know what the growing conditions are like. So is it clay? Is it sand? Is it acidic? Is it um alkaline?

[00:09:51]What nutrients are missing? things is that high in nitrogen, low in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, micronutrients.

[00:09:58]So, by getting a proper soil test, not only will you know what's existing, but you can also tell them what you're growing and they'll tell you what fertilizer or what inputs you need, how much lime per acre, for example. So, it's very helpful. Um, I haven't always done that and I pay I suffer for it because I end up planting things finding out that well my biggest issue is acidity and it is for a lot of people. I have pretty good drainage and soil quality like a good it's basically like a a silt. Got a good mix of clay and sand here especially because I've been adding so much organic material and compost and stuff here over the years.

[00:10:37]Um, but I'm missing that acidity. Uh plants like to be closer to neutral, closer to 7 pH so that they the roots can uptake the nutrients and the more acidic it is most plants suffer from that and they're not able to uptake nutrients. So it's um important to get that and if you do have acidic soil then you takes a long time to get it adjusted. you might have to just grow acidloving plants. In my case, blueberries and potatoes. And there's a number of things that do better in acidic soils than than um some of the other things. So these apples, for example, they can handle the acidity where some of the other fruits can't, as raspberries can as well. Pears and peaches, uh we have an issue with um the length of season and the the uh zone.

[00:11:28]It's zone four here. That's a growing zone, which means it get gets down below minus 30, which um ends up killing either buds or uh the um uh um branch tips or if it's cold enough, it'll kill the roots and then you lose the plant completely. That's what I concentrate on first. But then after that, so after figuring out where the garden's going to go, what the soil needs to improve it, the next thing I do is I start to get some things established, and that is the perennials. Now, that system is going to be you're trying to get to be self sustaining. So, you're trying to create as much compost as you can or much as much circulation see of nutrients. You want cycle. You want to grow things like what I've got here, stinging nettle and comfrey. So those things are actually improving the soil and improving the growing condition. So I got those established the first year.

[00:12:32]Comfrey is mineral accumulator. It puts deep deep taproot down and pulls up nutrients, minerals, and um like minerals from deep in the soil to feed the plants up at the root level of most plants.

[00:12:50]Just let that just let that wind die down for a second.

[00:12:55]So comfrey, make sure that you get the right comfry because I got this. This has been comfrey that I got from that farm that we leased 12 years ago. 12 14 14 years ago to begin with and then up until what 12 years ago I think there was an organic small market garden there years before she had comry cuz she was a permaculturist and she had support plants like that. So she had comry and it was growing in the compost pile there. So I took it took it home first and I've been taking it to each property and and planting it. It is not the uh sterile comfry I'm finding out now. I didn't ever have a problem with it in the past, but it is spreading absolutely everywhere. And typically, it only spreads by roots. So, if you end up digging up a a piece of it, you break off a root and that root ends up in the compost pile and then gets spread around that it's going to start growing wherever that root ended up. But, in this case, it's popping up everywhere.

[00:13:58]It's not It's in places that I would not have put soil from the compost pile. So, it's definitely seeded itself. Now, I don't mind so much. I use it for things like making um healing salves. I feed it to the chickens a lot. I compost it and I use it for making fertilizer. So, a fermented fertilizer in a black garbage can. I'll put that comfry. I'll put the stinging nettle. I'll put some urine in there. I'll put some chicken droppings maybe. And uh what else? couple other ingredients depending on what I think the soil or what the plants are are missing and uh it's effective so it's worth putting those plants in as early as you can. What you'll find typically is you have a nitrogen deficiency especially in a forest not enough things well that's what and that's what weeds are typically doing. They're getting established and they're um they don't need nitrogen a lot of the weeds and they can fix their own. So they establish a a disturbed site first and then you get all the other things moving in. These dandelions are another example. They just take over wherever you've cleared something. And there's no like I'm in the wild here. There's no dandelions growing on farmer's fields or anything around here. So I'm not it just arrives arrives in soil or compost that you buy. I I did bring in lots of uh manure from friends, hay and uh cow manure. I think might even had some horse manure, some goat manure for sure.

[00:15:32]So, it just came in from their farms along with worms and other things. So, that's just something I'm fighting now.

[00:15:39]But again, you can eat them. They are collecting sunlight, photosynthesizing, adding bulk. So, I just keep composting those and the chickens love them.

[00:15:49]feeding the dandelions along with all the other weeds to the chickens. So, nothing goes to waste. So, I've got everything set up. I've got my soil. I brought in soil if I needed soil, brought in compost if I needed it, and then planted the support plants. And then started planting perennials. These are sixth year maybe. I've got blackberries and raspberries.

[00:16:13]That stinging nettle, like I said, I did plant. These cherry trees have been here for that long. These are sour cherry.

[00:16:20]Yeah, these are sour cherries. Three of them in a row there. We got another couple over there. Got an apple tree and a plum tree down at the end that aren't doing well cuz soil's not good there.

[00:16:32]And uh what else? Yeah, just blackberries, raspberries, blueberries.

[00:16:36]Planted blueberries. I'd plant blueberries every year. This will be the first year we don't need to because there we have so many of them. And that's one of our major fruits that we do eat. We get a lot of it and we eat a lot of it. So, plums, uh, cherries, sweet cherries and sour cherries, bushes and trees, wild plums and, uh, Japanese plums, paw paws, hardy kiwi. That's what this vine is growing right here. Oh, grapes. Grapes are actually doing well this year. We lost some last year. They died last year and they didn't this year, surprisingly.

[00:17:11]This was a much colder winter, but I think there was enough snow cover that the roots were protected. So, they're coming up the third year for some of those. Not producing yet. Uh things like walking onions, Egyptian onions that keep reproducing. Garlic you've seen I just leave in the ground and it continues to spread.

[00:17:31]And uh other support plants. So, I've got um uh what do you call yrow uh got lavender things that bring in and feed pollinators. It's it's a whole ecosystem. You have to look at it as an ecosystem and you're going to keep learning. You're going to keep making mistakes and every site's different.

[00:17:49]Everybody eats different foods. Um so, you're just going to have to keep trying different things. Figure out what you actually eat and don't bother growing the things that you don't eat unless you have another use for it. like I said, creating fertilizer or compost or feeding your chickens or your pigs or whatever. So, it's a real learning experience and you're never done learning and you're always going to keep adjusting things, especially as you see what does well in your your area and what doesn't.

[00:18:16]Anyway, I'm going to weed here, feed the chickens. I'll show you the compost.

[00:18:20]Actually, I'll just refer back to the compost video that I did. Compost is absolutely essential. You could get away with not doing your so soil sample and putting any direct inputs immediately after you do your soil sample if you just continue to improve the soil on your own naturally over time. That's adding wood chips, adding organic material, adding compost, and anything else you can do to charcoal. I've done videos on that. I'll actually I'm going to do another big batch soon. So, I'll video that and show you. That's u biochar. So making charcoal and then inoculating it with nutrients.

[00:19:22]Now, as far as putting in fruit trees and any other plants for that matter, learn your zone, your growing zone. So, how cold it gets in the winter, your lowest temperature, how long your growing season is. Grow things that are appropriate for your environment, for your um latitude and altitude and length of growing season, how cold you get. So, we're zone 4 here, which means it gets down to minus below -30, - 34 some winters. That's Celsius, which is about the same in uh Fahrenheit. This is a peach tree. It's supposed to be hardy down to zone 4, but it's I don't know.

[00:20:03]It don't don't always trust it. Peaches aren't really meant to grow up here. So, any any cultivor that's been u uh hybridized that's supposed to survive here. Doesn't mean it's actually going to. This is I think what's this one?

[00:20:20]Glowing star peach. I think one of these was a nectarine. They might have all been three peaches. These two died last year and this one died this year. Waste of money. I've gone through I've tried so many different trees that I've spent over $100 each on and I they keep dying.

[00:20:37]So, uh, I I think it's a good idea to do that if you can afford to do it and if you have the growing space for it. But if you can't afford it or if you don't want to lose any money, then then just grow things that are appropriate for your climate. So, if you're growing food for self-reliance, absolutely learn your plants, learn your growing conditions, cuz there's microclimates as well within your landscape. We have some Japanese maples around the corner over there and some nectarines that are they're kind of in a pocket facing north or southeast which is like perfect condition for raising. It's like a microclimate that's actually like a zone or two above what your u rest of your property is. So that's like a zone probably even a zone six I would say in that corner cuz it also gets a lot of snow cover which means everything gets protected insulated in the winter and then it's protected from the north wind northwest winds that are the coldest. It's got a forest just on the other side of it. So that's protecting it from any south winds that come in that are strong. And it's a little hot pocket so the sun shines in there and gets trapped. The heat gets trapped. So ideal micro microclimate micro conditions. So there's a different plant. So that it's going to be another thorn in your side.

[00:21:58]That's bo. Really useful plant actually.

[00:22:02]But you probably know if you have a dog, especially a long-haired dog, or you have kids that like to play in the fields, bo is where burrs come from, which stick in your dog's fur and your kids hair. and uh bit of a disaster, but also puts down a really deep top route.

[00:22:19]Like one of them I just tried to dig double the depth of that fork and I still didn't reach the bottom. I couldn't even pull it out. Same thing.

[00:22:25]If that breaks off, a new plant's going to sprout from that route. So, I'll compost that. Or not compost. I'm going to either feed it to the chickens first or put it into this barrel and use it as fertilizer. It's fermented in the water with the rest of these things.

[00:22:51]All those roots broke off.

[00:22:54]So that's it. Thanks for watching. I look forward to seeing you back here on the homestead next time. Take care.

[00:23:12]Hello.