Spaniel,
I have a VERY similar situation to yours!
- My property is 90 minutes away from my house. I have a cabin there but can't store stuff there (it can get broken in to every few years).
- I have 2 kids in sports (wish I knew better than to sign them up for hockey - they will never want to inherit this property and I have spent a lot of time coaching and now watching my older son play college hockey)
- I actually have no tractor and rely on my ATV and a harrow rake for anything that I've done.
- I have built a very smaller compactor that probably doesn't weigh enough to meet everyone's normal standards.
- I had my property logged 5 years ago and I had a 1 1/2 acre field added (it's the only field around for miles) that serves as my plot.
- The field is on a hill, sounds similar and mine runs east to west.
- The soil was pretty crappy - mostly clay and the second year I put down 1,500 lbs of lime to get the soil closer to where it needs to be.
- NOTE: I have a lot of state game land nearby - bordering me on 2 sides but NO hunting pressure.
Some VERY good questions and points were above in other responses. It helps to use those questions and my answers as part of my response.
I'm still a student of all of this after 5 years but I do follow the no-till method as recommended above. I've got to build soil on top of all of that clay. This is loosely my experience. I hope to save you some time on the learning curve...
Why did I want a plot?
For me, I own 35 acres. It's in the south-western part of NY. There are a lot of hardwood forests and it's very hilly (not mountains like further east - i.e. Lake Placid) but a couple thousand feet in elevation change from top to bottom. Typically deer bed up on the top of the hills, feed on oak benches or ridges and come down to the bottoms where there are a few wild apple orchards and creeks at night. Honestly, I don't know why they come down at night - it's just what they do. Of course - MY PROPERTY IS IN THE BOTTOM. So I wanted deer on my property during daylight hours.
My original reason for having a plot was to hunt over. Plain and simple, I wanted one like you see on TV (right?). Honestly, I now know that's kind of dumb but it got me started on my journey.
What are my goals?
They have changed over these 5 years. Once I learned more, my interests varied and I started wanting to have food on my land after hunting season ended in order to help keep deer on my property. I'm not sure that having deer on my land year-round was a good idea based on only having 35 acres, I'm changing my tactics next year (you'll read that below). In the first couple of years, I started to improve my overall land. I've planted trees from the state forestry division a few different years (over 500 trees in total all of varying types from pine to hard and soft mast producers). These all come as bare root and I haven't caged them so I don't know if they survived at all.
So what have I done? (Planted)
Aside from the trees from the state forestry:
I did order 4 chestnut trees and planted those down the middle of my field.
I also planted two pear trees and 3 apple trees from the local big box store near the end of the season (big discounts) on the edges of the field.
As for food plot stuff, my experience has had different levels of success. Here's my story:
Year 1:
Was my best! (or so I thought)
I planted late summer after the field was put in by my logger with a dozer. The field was new to the woods, so the animals didn't know it was there. I probably planted brassica, rape and turnips in a couple of areas. Plus I did the whole field in clover. (via throw and and rake). I threw down 10-10-10 and lime and I had turnips the size of softballs! It was great and I was hooked! I never did a soil test and I nailed it! While I never hunted the field, I was hooked based on the success of the plantings.
MAJOR MISTAKE: When the field was put in the dozer left everything piled up in certain places along the edges. Deer don't like being in an alley. My field is 30 yards wide in the middle with two bigger sections at both ends. Like a kidney bean.
Year 2:
This was a low point for my plot! My land still had TONS of browse from the logging getting sunlight to the forest floor.
(Still panted via throw and rake)
I tried to plant stuff into the clay and basically had scorched earth. Mostly native stuff remained all year.
But I still had doe and fawns using the field eating that native stuff all spring/summer/fall.
Year 3:
I started to learn about field prep and soil building. I sprayed everything down with Gly 2 or 3 times in the spring before I finally planted buckwheat (again via throw and roll). It came in AWESOME! 3 - 4 feet tall and bees everywhere!
My chestnut trees were coming out of the tubes and it looked like a great year.
There were deer in the field all the time. Primarily doe and fawns. But they were using my property all spring/summer/fall. I was super happy with that! What Success!
Mid-July that year, I knocked the whole field down with my harrow rake and planted a brassica mix. (BIG MISTAKE! I should have planted in sections, leaving something for the deer to eat and as cover).
In August I put down some horse oats.
I had planted winter rye in September some time, with plans to kill that off the following year as part of the soil building.
By fall, all I had left was the oats and native grasses (or so I thought).
