Regenerative Agriculture: Thriving as a Modern Rancher

Episode 9- Building Strong Foundations: The Key to Your Dream Land Operation

• Christine Martin • Season 1 • Episode 9

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In this episode of Regenerative Agriculture: Thriving as a Modern Rancher, we’re diving into why building strong foundations is essential for achieving your long-term goals as a land steward. Using the analogy of building a house, I’ll share the three critical foundations you need to ensure your land operation thrives:

  • Making decisions today that honor your long-term vision.
  • Prioritizing investments that yield the greatest return.
  • Avoiding burnout by pacing yourself and learning step by step.

I’ll also share personal stories, including my early struggles with a permanent chicken coop and a garden plagued by high soil salinity, to illustrate the costly consequences of skipping foundational planning.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, frustrated, or stuck, this episode is for you.

Together, let’s regenerate your land, profits, and quality of life!


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Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: info@thrivinglandsteward.com

Christine:

Welcome to the Regenerative Agriculture Thriving as a Modern Rancher, the podcast for ranchers and land stewards looking to build healthy land, profitable businesses, and a fulfilling life. Join us as we explore regenerative practices and holistic management to help you thrive in today's ranching world.

Christine Martin:

This is Christine. In this episode, I want to talk about why it's so important to build strong foundations so that you can have your dream property. I'm going to be using a home building analogy because many of us have been involved in house building or building a building and we all live in the home. So we understand the upkeep and the considerations we make when living in a house. I'm going to focus on three foundations that I believe are important in building a strong foundation and I'm taking my own personal experience when I became a first time land steward 24 years ago when I moved to Texas. And that when I coach and consult with other land stewards, I find they have struggled and they have got themselves into some difficult positions because they didn't build on these three foundations. So the first foundation is. We would not, build a house on a shaky foundation, right? I think most of us know that. So why would we do the same thing with our land? Why would we not build foundations so that we can make decisions with respect to the land, with respect to the enterprises we want to have off the land with, respect to the life that we want to have while living on the land, keeping in mind. Our long term goals. We must understand that the decisions we make today may have and will likely have long term consequences. Many of us when we're looking for our next home or when we're deciding what house plan to build on our new land. We Take into consideration our lifestyle, our time of life, whether we're a young family with young children, whether we have older children whether we're empty nesters, if we're empty nesters, how many guest rooms do we need, we take into consideration. Do we need a home office? Do we need the home to be close enough to be commuting distance into the office? Do we consider school districts? Do we consider medical facilities and the proximity of medical facilities? And then with respect to the house, I don't know about you, but every time I went into a house I was always. thinking, okay I'm going to tear down this wall because this kitchen is too small and I need a bigger kitchen because I like to entertain. And the pantry is way too small because we live half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour away from a grocery store. I need to be able to stock up. and have a monthly purchase. So I'm not going into town all the time. If I have a garden, I need to have enough space in the pantry or have a cellar or have a basement to store all of the canned produce, the canned meat that I've, produced. If we like to host parties, then we consider the size of the living area. A big yard so that the Children can go out and play and exercise.. Do we make bathrooms that are easily converted to handicap facilities? If we have mobility issues as we age, are you planning to be in the until you die or is this just a house for this chapter of life? All of these things we take into consideration when we decide on a house, when we decide on a house plan, why should we not do the same with respect to what we're going to do off the land? Making decisions today that honor. Our long term goals is super important and it's super important because of the next foundation that I'd like to discuss is we work very hard for our money. Some of us have been scrimpting and saving for many years in order to be able to achieve and build this dream life that we want. So we must make sure that this hard earned money that our blood, sweat and tears, Is going to give us that return on our investment, right? We've worked hard. We've got to make sure that any money we, spend is going to move us towards that long term goal. Move us towards that vision. If you move into an old house, are you going to spend money on painting the walls? Or are you going to spend money on fixing the foundation that is cracked or that is unstable if you're a family with young children, are you going to spend money on adding an addition so that you have more bedrooms for the children? Or are you going to spend money on putting a nice picket fence outside the house? We need to make sure that the money we spent is being applied in a fashion that will move us towards the long term goal the same thing applies with land. Many of us when we first move on to the land. Our first instinct is to take the worst part of the property and try and improve that. The problem with that is that many, times, those areas require a lot of time, a big investment. And it will take a long time for you to start generating any productivity off that area. The better investment would be to take an already existing productive area and making that better, to increase the productivity. And generally that is going to provide you a quick return. You'll see that productivity happen very quickly. The benefit of doing it that way is that because of the increase in productivity, then you have increased resources, whether it's money, because you've increased carrying capacity, you've increased the productivity of the produce. And so then you have more to sell, which means you have more money and you can use that money then to invest into a poorer condition. The other added benefit to having this as a foundation is as new land stewards. The learning curve is very high. And if we can start seeing the results quicker, it provides. Encouragement. It gives us confidence that we can do what it is that we want that we can achieve our dream. So there's also that mental component that we need to remember to encourage ourselves that we're doing things right. in a manner that will get us that long term goal. And that leads me to the third foundation that I think is very important. And that is recognizing that in our excitement of remodeling a house or building a new house. We want everything done right now, right? If we're remodeling, we want the plumber to come in. We want the electrician to come in. We want the flooring guy to come in. We want to go and order the fixtures. We want to go look at the tile. We want to have it delivered. And if you've ever remodeled a house, if you've ever built a house, Very quickly that turns into chaos because there is a step by step process. We need to, if we're remodeling, we need to tear down walls, we need to reframe. Then the electrician comes in and then the plumber comes in and then the sheet rock guy comes in and then the taping, and then we do either texturing and painting or wallpapering and then we put in the trims and then we put in the floors. So there is a process. so that it's not chaotic and so that we can build that strong foundation, we can build that sturdy wall, we can have flowing water without leaks and without constriction. We can have light switches that work properly. The same thing needs to be done On the land. Many times we move on to the land and we're so excited and I get it because I was the same way. We're so excited to be on the land that we, get the chickens and we, and we get the guineas because the guineas are good for the flies and the mosquitoes and we buy the sheep and we buy the cattle and, we get the dairy goats and we milk the dairy goats and then We start making the soaps because it's another way to, use the product and we need the soap and the learning curve, especially if you're a new land steward, is so high and you end up spending six hours a day doing chores and you very quickly burn out, it's too much chaos. It's too much going on. So we must prioritize Our implementation of our dreams as we feel comfortable I shared in episode eight about my experience with the chickens, we need to make sure that we understand how chickens work, how the chickens are going to work with our land, how the chickens are going to work with our longterm goals. I will share with you that I've had chickens for 24 years. They have never ever, been a profitable enterprise. If I'm looking at it on a profit center, I should not have chickens for eggs, but because of my food restrictions and because of my health concerns, I keep the chickens because I want to make sure that I have no soy, no corn, no GMO eggs, pasture raised, no chemicals, no hormones, all of these things. Okay. So I keep it for my own personal values, but you need to recognize that for yourself. We need to make sure that we're not spread too thin, that we're not frustrated, that we're learning in a fashion that allows us the quality of life, that we're not throwing money into projects, that we're not going to be able to get our return on our investment, so the same thing as with the house, we need to implement with their land. Without strong foundations, the structure of your building, your dream land isn't going to support you during the challenges that you're going to face because you will face challenges. In episode eight, I shared a lesson I learned when I built my permanent chicken coop and its effect on the land. I'd like to share another story that demonstrates the need for these foundational principles that I've just shared. I, when I first moved on to the five acres, I wanted a garden. So I put down cardboard in the area where I wanted the garden to kill off the Bermuda grass. I did that in March, and then in, end of May, I removed the cardboard, the Bermuda was dead, and I purchased seedlings. Tomatoes and zucchinis and lettuce and peppers and several other things. And I planted them. The kids and I were so excited to see all this bountiful harvest that we were going to pick and then take back to the kitchen and prepare and eat. That first garden was an absolute disaster. I didn't produce anything. So that fall, I decided that, Oh, I had seen that Bermuda grass quickly grew back. I thought if I build a raised bed, then I can try and prevent the Bermuda from growing into the bed. So I built a raised beds using treated, no, untreated two by eights, I think it was, and then I lined it with the garden cloth to keep the Bermuda from coming in and then filled it with mushroom compost that I had a mushroom plant close to me. So I was able to get a mushroom compost and I filled the beds with that and purchased some more seedlings and planted those. And we had, okay, success. on productivity of all those plants that spring, because I had used that mushroom compost, that compost continued composting I decided I needed to add more compost into the bed to make it full. So I bought another truckload of mushroom compost, put it onto the beds, again, purchased seedlings, planted those, and again, had reasonable harvest. I continued that for another year. By the fourth year, I started questioning this need of having to fill these beds with mushroom compost that I was having to pay for pay for the delivery, pay for the actual mushroom compost, and then my time in shoveling that compost into the raised bed. And the productivity of the plants I was planting was not increasing. I started questioning this need of having to add the mushroom compost. By this time I had put together my little community of land stewards that were more experienced than I. And so that I could ask questions and, get input in what I was doing because I was a first time land steward. I had no clue what I was up to. And so I asked a friend of mine who I knew was a very good gardener about, this question. Why is it that I need to keep adding mushroom compost and my productivity isn't increasing? So he suggested that I sample my soil to analyze my soil. It turns out that my soil had really high salinity. The accumulation of soluble salts in the soil makes it harder for the plants to absorb water, even if there's moisture in the soil, It causes a nutritional imbalance in the soil. It can cause toxicity in the plant tissues and it reduces diversity and activity of the beneficial organisms in the soil. All of this reducing the productivity and the yield of the plants. And then I found out that not too far from me, there was a salt mine that was in the business of extracting the salt from the land. So now that I knew what was going on with my land, then I could change the management practices accordingly. I did learn that adding the mushroom compost was helping because the composting and all the organisms in the soil was helping with the microbial activity. I also learned that adding gypsum to the soil the calcium in the gypsum replace the sodium in the soil. I learned to select salt tolerant plants, those plants that weren't affected by the high salinity as much. And I also learned to use microbial innoculants to help increase the microbial activity in the soil, not understanding the land when I first started. Led to three years of a lot of expenses with respect to adding the mushroom compost. It led to some frustration with respect to the garden not producing, not understanding what was going on with my land was like building a house with a poor foundation. I was so focused on what was happening above the surface without taking consideration what was going on below the surface. Just like a house needs a strong foundation to stand strong. A garden needs a healthy microbially active soil in order to be productive. The years that I spent adding compost to the garden was, the same as patching up the cracks in the foundation of the house without addressing the root cause. It wasn't until I learned about the salinity of the soil that I could build a good foundation for my garden. Now that I look at my garden, I can see the beautiful plants, the beautiful fruit trees, the productive fruit trees and garden, and I know that underneath I have a strong foundation because I built the soil health and the ecosystem functions to be able to produce the garden of my dreams. So if you're a new land steward and you're struggling with some of these same issues, the problem isn't that you're not working hard enough. It's that no one has shown you how to build your dream the right way. in a sustainable way so that you can achieve your long term goals. If you want to build a better foundation for your land operation so that you can achieve your dream. I have put together a four week virtual online course that starts January 22nd to help land stewards like yourself to build a strong foundation for long term success the link for the description of the course is in the show notes, or you can find me on Instagram at regen ranch consulting and DM me with the word dream and you'll get a link with the details of the course. I hope to see you there and thank you for listening.

Christine:

Thanks for listening to Regenerative Agriculture, Thriving as a Modern Rancher. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, share with fellow ranchers, and leave a review. Together we can regenerate our lands, our profits, and our lives. Until next time, keep thriving.