New to land and the possibilities of perennials

Hello all, I’m new to the forum and to permaculture techniques in general, just hoping for some basic advice and opinion. Last January my partner and I obtained 2.5 acres in what could be best described as a damp and low area. Not a swamp completely   but compacted clay/ silty, root and rock laden soil. We have a tall maple over-story, I believe to be sugar maple, in western NY, zone 5b. We have brought in 14 chickens, and have started to using them in a relatively small compost operation. I have built a a make shift high tunnel and have been integrating spent grain and food scraps donated from a local brewery with leaves stuffed in paper bags that I collected from the side of the road post foliage season here in western NY. The chickens scratch at the mix and feast at their leisure. My goal through the winter in to try and build up enough viable soil that I can build up mounded beds in grassy areas on the property and around the boarders of the wooded areas. eventually  I hope to plant a food forest into the less dense wooded area after clearing out brush, mostly honeysuckle, while trying my best to respect ecosystems that are already effectively in place. Our property boarders protected wetlands.

As this is the first property I have owned I have never reached past just planting a large annual garden. I was able to pick up a bunch of small Bare root perennials from a local nursery and I am a bit stumped on what to do with them as of now. I don’t have viable space ready for their permanent home.

My thoughts are

A: pot them up and place them close in a indoor grow tent that we use for growing fresh greens over the winter . and once established place them I. The garage and allow a period of dormancy before spring

B do what I suggested above but don’t allow dormancy,

Or C cram them all (probably 20 trees) in a small garden bed out doors and dig them up in spring.

Or d, pot them all and stick them in the garage right now

In addition I have a lot of elder and current cuttings, good idea to root now or wait until spring?

Also any other resources, books, you tube channels. Educational resources that you recommend for understanding permaculture techniques, from propagation to landscape formation. I’m interested in it all. I’m sure experimentation is key here.  

Hello and welcome Wyatt.

You'll have bigger success if you plant your bare root seedlings while in dormancy. The plants do not have much requirements right now and they'll wake up when the nature's providing again. You may grow them in pots and avoid dormancy too, but then you'll have to provide food and water the whole season. Also, there are special pots for reforestation that prevent root entanglement. These pots allow roots to escape to the sides and they are to be cut before planting.
As for cuttings I wouldn't know, I don't have snow where I live, we just can't do this in the heat of summer since they die before rooting.

A lovely and easy to read book is Toby Hemmenway's 'Gaia's Garden'. This book gives you a flavour of what a food forest is and how to design for one.
If you like YouTube, Geoff Lawton has his own channel, you can learn about Greening the Desert, and of his own farm in Australia. I follow also Ernst Goetch (sintropic forestry), David the Good (growing in Florida), Canadian Permaculture Legacy (he explains the why of what he does), Diego Footer (who lead me towards the Food Soil Web), Andrew Millison (excellent courses), Huw Richards (lush walsh gardens are a joy to watch), and I also watch some local youtubers, which are more helpful since their climate is similar to mine, Permacultura Mas Les Vinyas, and AguaBosque. I would not include Little Spanish Farmstead, it's educational but in another sense: it shows what it really means to live the dream, bad and good.

Permaculture is a design process. It's a tool that helps you design your farm or anything else, that is geared towards people and permanence. This is how you draw your maps, and decide what to place where and when. A technique is how you do meet a specific goal. I could teach you my technique for a sunken bed, but it won't do you any good in your excessively hydrated land. Or you could learn how to think like a permaculturist and see what your land needs, then ask the proper technique for the goals you set.

In a climate like yours, I've seen a couple of projects embracing ponds, cultivating much food on these ponds (plants and fishes), and then growing other kind of food on raised beds. Generally speaking, it is much easier to adapt yourself to growing things that go well in your land than adapting your land to growing the things you like to eat. Any earthwork or terrain adaptation should be made just for increasing energy and water harvesting first, quality of life improvements second.