Actually, in most cases it isn't, but it is pasteurized. Sterilization would make the medium insanely contamination-ridden, due to the lack of competing microbes. Once mold starts growing, you've gotta toss the medium completely. While this is probably a nice hippy-dippy way to sell mushrooms, there's no way it's going to maintain healthy flushes for long with a "tame" culture like agaricus bisporus. It just can't compete with molds like trichoderma, which is possibly the most common mold on earth. That's not counting the possibly hundreds of people touching the growth medium, throwing their trash in it, discarding unwanted mushrooms into the pile, and the like.

I've read a lot about it (I was once an aspiring mushroom farmer) and I believe it has something to do with pressure+heat killing fungal spores, but leaving beneficial bacterial endospores intact. Essentially, the bacteria and other microbes take up real estate until the fungus shows up, and then it moves into their turf and consumes them as well.

The interesting thing is that in commerical mushroom grows, pasteurization temps are reached naturally due to the size of manure piles. The mass of the piles coupled with the immense activity of microbes within them raises the internal temperature to anywhere between 140f-170f.

Source: Paul Stamets, The Mushroom Cultivator and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms.

Edit
Here's some more places to find information about mushrooms, since I'm hardly an expert. I'm just a guy who reads a lot, essentially.

Books:

• Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, Paul Stamets
  
• The Mushroom Cultivator, Paul Stamets
  
  Those are the standard grow manuals, but if anyone has a suggestion for a more comprehensive or up-to-date manual, it'd be welcome. Mycelium Running is a great book if you're just looking for a fun read about mushrooms.
  
  Websites:
  
  
• /r/mycology - The subreddit devoted to mushroom growing and identification. Probably more relevant info here if you're interested in growing mostly edibles.
  
  
• Fungi Perfecti is good for equipment (I bought all my HEPA filters there, at the time they were the cheapest around). I think they have a YouTube channel too, and that's got some interesting stuff on it.
  
  
• Shroomery.org is a moderately famous mushroom growing forum, with a bit of a bent more toward psychedelics. However, I found tons of great people and information in the edible mushroom forum, and I received a few commerical grade cultures from a very generous member. There can be a bit of a circlejerk surrounding some "celebrities" that post there, but take what they say with a grain of salt, and always fact check against your grow manual. If you see something that looks stupid, it probably is, unless it works. Edit: I don't think Reddit likes linking to the Shroomery, removed the formatting.
  
  Videos:
  
  
• TED Talks: Paul Stamets - Six Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World - This is basically his "standard" speech he gives when he does talks. There have probably been additions and improvements to it, but the message hasn't really changed. This is "Mycelium Running" in about 5 minutes. Watch this to decide whether you want to read that book.
  
  
• Let's Grow Mushrooms! by Roger Rabbit - One of the aforementioned Shroomery celebrities. His videos are helpful, but make sure to fact check why you're doing stuff, because he tends to leave a lot of that out. This is very nuts and bolts demonstrations of how to prepare substrate, how to provide humidity at a low cost, and several different methods of growing for different species of mushrooms.
  

If you move the decimal over. This is about 1,000 in books...

(If I had to pick a few for 100 bucks: encyclopedia of country living, survival medicine, wilderness medicine, ball preservation, art of fermentation, a few mushroom and foraging books.)


Medical:

Where there is no doctor

Where there is no dentist

Emergency War Surgery

The survival medicine handbook

Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine

Special Operations Medical Handbook

Food Production

Mini Farming

encyclopedia of country living

square foot gardening

Seed Saving

Storey’s Raising Rabbits

Meat Rabbits

Aquaponics Gardening: Step By Step

Storey’s Chicken Book

Storey Dairy Goat

Storey Meat Goat

Storey Ducks

Storey’s Bees

Beekeepers Bible

bio-integrated farm

soil and water engineering

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation

Food Preservation and Cooking

Steve Rinella’s Large Game Processing

Steve Rinella’s Small Game

Ball Home Preservation

Charcuterie

Root Cellaring

Art of Natural Cheesemaking

Mastering Artesian Cheese Making

American Farmstead Cheesemaking

Joe Beef: Surviving Apocalypse

Wild Fermentation

Art of Fermentation

Nose to Tail

Artisan Sourdough

Designing Great Beers

The Joy of Home Distilling

Foraging

Southeast Foraging

Boletes

Mushrooms of Carolinas

Mushrooms of Southeastern United States

Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast


Tech

farm and workshop Welding

ultimate guide: plumbing

ultimate guide: wiring

ultimate guide: home repair

off grid solar

Woodworking

Timberframe Construction

Basic Lathework

How to Run A Lathe

Backyard Foundry

Sand Casting

Practical Casting

The Complete Metalsmith

Gears and Cutting Gears

Hardening Tempering and Heat Treatment

Machinery’s Handbook

How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic

Electronics For Inventors

Basic Science


Chemistry

Organic Chem

Understanding Basic Chemistry Through Problem Solving

Ham Radio

AARL Antenna Book

General Class Manual

Tech Class Manual


MISC

Ray Mears Essential Bushcraft

Contact!

Nuclear War Survival Skills

The Knowledge: How to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a cataclysm

Great work!

I put in several similar beds last spring as well. I've been gardening for nearly a decade now, but this is my first year doing raised beds using Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot method. I plan to dabble in some permaculture techniques eventually.

I can't say enough about the Square foot gardening if you want to maximize the yield in smaller spaces. I grew 8 tomatoes using the described method--1 plant per square foot--and several others using my previous method of "let 'em bush out like mad".

For larger indeterminate tomatoes, I'll never go back to the bush growing ways. The bush method works best for determinate and small tomatoes like cherries or grapes. For the square foot method the idea is to build an 8ft tall trellis and train them vertically. Pinch all suckers off once or twice weekly, which results in a single vertical stem/vine per plant rather than a giant tomato bush.

You'll get less yield per plant, but considerably higher yield per square foot of space. Tomatoes grown this way ripen quickly, and entire sets of fruit ripen together. The fruit is more uniform and less likely to be damaged by pests, and it's dramatically easier to harvest. It takes a bit more management to keep them pruned and trained, but it's well worth it come harvest time. I can't suggest it enough.

The square foot method isn't as great for some other veggies, however. Brassicae (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, etc) need way more than 1 sq foot per plant. Want to grow squash or melon? Better dedicate an entire bed to it. I was shocked at how well it works for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, salad greens, herbs, etc though.

All New Square Foot Gardening II: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591865484/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_yZ8LBbKQCG5AP

Producing 50% of the food for 6 people off 1/3 acre is a tall order. I would recommend looking into edible food forests for the wooded area(research agroforesty and edible food forests), and edible perennial landscaping for the front yard to stack functions and bring those areas into production. You could also keep your chickens and coop in the wooded area, so as not to waste space in your "open area". If you are planing on raising eggs to sell, they typically are a loss-leader until you get to about 150 birds, which doesn't sound feasible for the amount of land you have. With that in mind, I'd keep your flock small; 6-10 birds, depending on how many eggs your family eats a week.
If you have the time and the energy, I would highly recommend John Jeavon's "Grow Biointensive" method. This method produces more food with less water and less space, however, to be able to plant as close together as he recommends, you have to follow ALL of his steps. That means double digging, which is pretty labor intensive at the very beginning of the season.
As for fish, seems like you could set up an aquaponics greenhouse, which can be expensive to start up but wonderful once going, or you can dig a pond.

EDIT: To add resources.
http://www.johnjeavons.info/video.html - video introduction to bioitensive. (on your scale I might skip out on the compost crops)

"How To Grow More Vegetables*" By John Jeavons is a wonderful resource.

Gaia's Garden: A guide to Home-scale Permaculture by Toby Hemmingway

For greenhouse production: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long

If you are thinking about a market stand of some kind, The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook: A Complete Guide To Managing Finances, Crops, and Staff - and Making a Profit

Rather than slog through the opinions here, I'd pick up Jeavons' "How to Grow More Vegetables (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine."

It has comprehensive tables of expected yields for a wide variety of common crops, and specifically highlights those that are space and calorie efficient. You will never spend a better $15.

What your describing is a constructed wetlands. Its more for bio-remediation of run off from a parking lot.

Compost toilets usually either employ the bucket method, where you capture the defecate in a bucket and empty it into a barrel where it can sit for a year before being safe to compost. Or the toilet detains the defecate in a chamber beneath and dries it out using ventilation. Once its sufficiently dry its safe to mix with compost.

Either way if you build it properly and teach people how to use it, it won't have an odor.

Humanure Handbook

>Do you know how unsafe a hot water heater that only goes up to 90 degrees F is? I am shocked you haven't caught legionnaire's already.

I wasn't overly familiar with it, so thanks for the heads up. I've been using chlorinated tap water and usually only 2-3 days worth at a time. I'll make sure I don't let water sit in there and become stagnant and to rinse it out with a 5% bleach solution once a week to be safe.

>Do you know how many nasty diseases you can catch from improperly disposed human waste?

Yes, actually, I did a lot of research and reading on proper composting methods before diving into it. Your average person's waste will contain large amounts of bacteria and some common parasites (pin worms, etc.) and possibly some virus's(virii?) as well. Here's a chart that shows survival times of some pathogens.


I'd suggest reading the Humanure Handbook if you're interested in the topic.

Dave Jacke's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Forest-Gardens-2-set/dp/1890132608

Gaia's Garden:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603580298/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687542&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1890132608&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0DKFRRSMRZE5HP5F3XDB

That's him. And I've been informed it's 10 years since I set this garden up using his book.

www.amazon.com/All-Square-Foot-Gardening-Revolutionary/dp/1591865484/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536030570&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=all+new+square+foot+gardening+2nd+edition&dpPl=1&dpID=61WJIemI

They wouldn't claim to be scientists, more like ecological engineers, but there are tons of writeups. They write a lot of books; there are a lot of "test sites" around the world.

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture --> most accessible guide for the layperson
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603580298/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1603580298&linkCode=as2&tag=postapocaly06-20&linkId=PARY4RJKHWLQYGER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0908228015/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0908228015&linkCode=as2&tag=postapocaly06-20&linkId=NSVF65UXGPBESS3D --> Permaculture: A Designer's Manual, by Bill Mollison --> the textbook for the so-called "permaculture design course"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

Some famous demonstration sites:

Zaytuna Farm, Australia - http://permaculturenews.org/2012/06/01/zaytuna-farm-video-tour-apr-may-2012-ten-years-of-revolutionary-design/

Bealtaine Cottage, British Isles - http://bealtainecottage.com/before-permaculture/

Agroforestry UK - https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/

It's quite a rabbit hole! Good luck exploring!!

Hey friend! That's kind of a big question with a lot of detail. All the information is out there, but it can be tricky to find. I think we can all empathize with you there.

Generally speaking, all the concepts are the same, it's only the equipment that changes. Essentially, all you're doing is the following, without any of the details:

 

1. Get a small culture and expand it
   
   
2. Wait a few days/weeks.
   
   
3. Use the expanded culture to inoculate some spawn. Alternately you can just buy the spawn online and skip to step 5
   
   
4. Wait around a few days/weeks for the spawn to colonize (if you didn't buy it online).
   
   
5. Prepare some substrate (usually sawdust/wood chips that have been pasteurized, or sawdust/wood chips supplemented with a grain bran that has all been sterilized) and inoculate it with your spawn. You can usually source hardwood sawdust/wood chips for free on places like CraigsList. If not, you'll have to buy it in the form of mulch or pellets.
   
   
6. More waiting
   
   
7. Expose the colonized substrate to fruiting conditions
   
   
8. More waiting
   
   
9. Take pictures of your grow and pretend it was all easy
   
    
   
   I usually advocate for getting a pressure cooker and beginning with grains/jars; but you said you were on a tight budget, so I'll give you some beginner-tier options to get the above accomplished. The caveat here is that they're by no means the best or least-risky methods, but you asked for a cheap way forward that is still effective, so that's what I'll give you. It would be impossible for me to list out every detail, so just ask me questions and I'll fill in the rest one thing at a time:
   
    
   
   You could pasteurize prepared wood chip/sawdust mix (substrate) in a coffee can or plastic tub (with a lid) and buy pre-made spawn online. Spawn is ≈$10-25USD and comes as bags of grains or sawdust. You can find tubs all over the place for cheap. Then you just combine the two, wait for the substrate to colonize, and fruit from there (Steps 5-9).
   
   You could also buy a grocery store Hericium mushroom, chop it up into slices, spread that out over moist cardboard, and let that colonize. This is a little more risky with Hericium (v. Pleurotus, which is much more aggressive). After it finishes, you would add that cardboard spawn to some pasteurized wood chip/sawdust mix in layers, then wait for it to finish colonizing before fruiting it (Steps 3-9).
   
   Those are both cheap ways to start out, but don't skimp on the spawn.
   
   Depending on the tote you use, you might need to make a ShotGun Fruiting Chamber (SGFC), which is just a tote with holes in it on all 6 sides, with some perlite or grow stone at the bottom. It's as expensive as it is to buy a tote. You'll need to find a drill and bit to make the holes. I can run you through that, too.
   
    
   
   All of this is just a basic idea to point you in a direction given your low budget. It's slightly more risky, but cheap and easy. That's the tradeoff.
   
   If you're in college, you might have access to a biology lab and be able to use their equipment. Glass Petri dishes, bio-safety cabinet, autoclave, possible supply of agar, etc. Let me know if you do and I'll walk you though some more advanced techniques that also meet your budget. All you'd have to do is buy a few bags at ≈$1USD each and either some liquid culture (≈$10), or even a store-bought mushroom will do.
   
    
   
   That's a super rough, dirty version. People will probably yell at me, but that's ok. I can't type out a novel here, so just ask questions about what you don't understand and we'll go from there. If you need a source that takes you front to back, go to your college library and Inter-Library-Loan "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms" or "Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation".

>After I managed to correct that situation, I also waited to see how the products cultivated. Thats right, Im growing the shit, just like everyone else is here too, but everyone acts like saying they are studying the pore under microscope is gonna save you if they raid your house...yah yah yah, whatever.

Or maybe it's because selling drug cultivation supplies would be a surefire way to get the community shut down on a website that doesn't allow my users in /r/snackexchange to trade a bottle of beer or a cigarette. Microscopy isn't some stupid "SWIM" cover by armchair lawyers, it's the only legal reason you should have those syringes. Your choice to break the law, however wrong it might be, and then brag about it hurts more than one individual vendor. The rest of us are just interested in microbiology and I don't know where I could source an isolated strain in the wild without risking contamination, making this an invaluable resource. And as someone who's purchased from MM666, the samples arrived within like two days and were better than the samples I'd purchased from actual websites before.

edit: Also, here you go. They're really neat organisms. Understanding them is important for reasons beyond the novelty of looking at something small.

We could import a heck of a lot less than we do. Eliot Coleman farms in an environment almost identical to NS, zone 5.

http://www.amazon.ca/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Edition/dp/1890132276

Did you know that tomatoes were grown in Northern BC during the depression? That cherries can be grown in zone 3? Figs in zone 5? Olives are being grown in BC and the first crops will be within 5 years? Ginseng is being grown for China in the Okanogan? People in Vancouver are growing lemons (Meyer) outdoors year round? Pawpaws in Ontario? Amazing, isn't it.

The Humanure Handbook covers everything you need to know. You have to have airflow and drainage or the worms will die so the bucket idea is not great. Honestly, if you don't have the room, don't do it. It's likely illegal in the city anyhow.

Glad to help. Now is a great time to get back into gardening and build up the soil where you live. You might want to consider throwing in some perennial edibles. And this book is a good read if you want a collapse-resistant garden. Good luck and have fun!

Buy a regional guide. Here are a few if you are in the US. It's important to know the terminology that goes along with mushroom hunting.

Also Use the links in the sidebar here, they will tell you the active mushrooms in your area. Once you do this do individual research on each one.

Regional guides

Alaska

Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams

Western US

All The Rain Promises and More
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest

Mushrooms Demystified This is an old book, while still useful it definitely needs updating.

The New Savory Wild Mushroom Also dated but made for the PNW

Midwestern US

Mushrooms of the Midwest

Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States

Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest

Southern US

Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide

Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States

Eastern US

Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians

Mushrooms of Northeast North America (This was out of print for awhile but it's they're supposed to be reprinting so the price will be normal again)

Mushrooms of Northeastern North America

Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America(Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America)

Mushrooms of Cape Cod and the National Seashore

More specific guides

Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World

North American Boletes

Tricholomas of North America

Milk Mushrooms of North America

Waxcap Mushrooms of North America

Ascomycete of North America

Ascomycete in colour

Fungi of Switzerland: Vol. 1 Ascomycetes

PDFs

For Pholiotas

For Chlorophyllum

Websites that aren't in the sidebar

For Amanita

For coprinoids

For Ascos

MycoQuebec: they have a kickass app but it's In French

Messiah college this has a lot of weird species for polypores and other things

Cultivation

The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home (If your home is a 50,000 sq ft warehouse)

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms

Mycology

The fifth kingdom beginner book, I would recommend this. It goes over fungal taxonomy Oomycota, Zygomycota and Eumycota. It also has ecology and fungi as food.

The kingdom fungi coffee table book it has general taxonomy of the kingdom but also very nice pictures.

Introduction to fungi Depends on your definition of beginner, this is bio and orgo heavy. Remember the fungi you see pop out of the ground (ascos and basidios) are only a tiny fraction of the kingdom.

Ooh! Ooh! This sounds fun. I put some time into this when I should have been working, so I hope it helps.

1) Pruners - $20.49

This will be your most used tool. Eventually, you can upgrade into Felcos or Bahcos, but right now just get these Coronas. They're honestly a better size for hobby gardeners (fit right in your pocket), and the're very high quality for the price.

2) Your First Gardening Book - $17.06

Gardening Without Work by Ruth Stout. It's simple and gives you a general plan that really does work very well. It's a must for beginning gardeners, imho. You can find just about any other information you need on the internet (for now). Very little maintenance required, including fertilizing, weeding, applying pesticides, etc. (In a nutshell, the main step involves putting down an 8" layer of mulch...).

If you want to go with a more traditional raised bed setup, you should buy Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening. It's a fantastic back yard gardening book, as well, but the methods are kind of pricey and less sustainable. Still, it's a great system for growing a lot of food in limited space and it was the first book I used.

3) Indestructible Garden Trowel - $15.99

This will be your second most used tool. This particular model is about as indestructible as it gets short of this bad boy. You'll use it for digging holes for transplanting, mostly. Don't buy a cheap one or it will bend or break or both.

4) Fertilizer - $7.83 + $11.06 = $24.26

I chose cottonseed meal because that's what Ruth Stout recommends using (the rest of the nutrients in her system come from the giant mounds of mulch). Apply as she indicates.

I also added some Fish Emulsion Liquid Fertilizer because I love the stuff. It's a great way to add some extra nitrogen (and just a little P & K) mid season to your veggies or even to your compost pile when it gets carbon heavy. The stuff I have right now stinks, but the plants love it and it's easy to apply if you have a watering can.

Make sure you tailor your fertilizer to whatever system you're using, though. Don't fertilize like Ruth if you're not using her mulch based system. If you're using Square Foot Gardening, you won't be fertilizing at all, but you will be using lots of peat, vermiculite, and (different kinds of) compost. Etc, etc, etc.

5) Work Gloves - $10.97

These are specifically for women, but there's a button to switch to men's if that's you. You won't wear them all the time, but you'll be happy you have them when you need them. Notice that this comes with 6 pairs of gloves. I misplace gloves all the time, so having several is handy (hehe).

__

Total: $88.77

__

Notes:

• Save the rest for now. You're inevitably going to become enamored with something like earthworm casings, azomite, or a nozzle for your gardening hose down the line. Your future self will thank you for having some extra cash to buy it with, and this is plenty to get you started on your way to being a badass backyard gardener.
  
  
• The two above methods claim to be mostly pest free. In my experience, nothing is pest free, and you just need to grow enough quantity to weather the storm when it does randomly come. I would just concentrate on growing healthy plants first and foremost and then let the chips fall where they may. You might turn to pesticides later, and that's fine, but hold off on buying any until you know what is nibbling on your plants. Most pesticides are specific to the pest.
  
  
• Notice that I don't include any seeds. Your first year of gardening, I'd honestly recommend just buying live plants from your local nursery (and sticking to plants bred to survive in your region). Growing from seed can be hard, and your entire crop of seedlings dying is a humbling experience, I can assure you.
  
  The other reason there are no seeds on my list is because I don't recommend buying them on Amazon. I've had bad experiences every time I've tried it. If you need seeds, go with a good seed dealer, like Johnny's Selected Seeds, Burpee, etc, or find a good nursery in your area.
  
  
• If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
  
  _____
  
  TL;DR: Pruners, a book to get you started, a durable trowel, fertilizer that is specific to your growing plan, and some gloves. Enjoy!

Start with Gaia’s Garden (https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298/)

Permaculture on the scale for those of us that aren’t farmers.

Toby Hemenway would disagree with you.

the aggressive nature of bamboo is greatly overstated. This is partly due to the fact that things like sidewalks actually make it more aggressive - it will eagerly shoot under 24" of concrete to come out the other side. It is also partly due to bamboo's need for trimming - in the wild, all sorts of critters eat the shoots when they're small so only a few ever reach the crown. However, there are all sorts of bamboo barriers that do a righteous job of containing bamboo even if you're too lazy to go out and eat the shoots every now and then.

Is bamboo a voracious grower? Yes. Are its rhizomes tough to eradicate once a clump is established? Yes. But compared to some perfectly mainstream-acceptable plants like ivy and blackberries, it's a pussycat. People freak out about bamboo because it's what the cool kids do. Likely there was someone who moved into a house with a bamboo grove in the back, decide to take it out, and discover that it doesn't go quietly.

I once had eight sawed-off 55gal drums full of golden bamboo. They were beautiful. They were also on pallets, in a parking lot, 150 feet from the nearest bare earth.

That didn't stop total strangers from walking up while I was watering and saying "better be careful, that stuff will get away from you!"

I was introduced by Gaia's Garden , it was a wonderful read and an even better starting point

If you're raising it for small scale, you'll want to choose heritage breeds or locally adapted breeds. In the same way that the mealy, tasteless tomatoes you buy at the supermarket are bred for uniformity and transportability rather than flavor or adaptability to your local climate, "common" wheat and grain varieties are bred to withstand herbicides and pesticides, and to be productive in large monocultures. Small Scale Grain Raising is good. I haven't read The Organic Grain Grower but it looks good. If you're interested in corn, several homesteaders I know grow painted mountain corn and have only had great reviews.

You don't need acreage to get started. Many urban lots have plenty of room for doing everything you want. On my urban lot (8000sqft) I currently have 6 chickens, 3 beehives, a 100sqft greenhouse, 200 sqft of raised beds, 10 fruit trees, plus many more edible shrubs, ground covers and other plants. I plan on adding more fruit trees, ducks, and rabbits soon. I have rainwater harvesting set up to supply all my outdoor watering needs and will be installing solar on my house this spring to supply most of my energy needs. I am in no way completely self sufficient, but I can supply my self with two or three meals a day during the summer and at least one a day during the winter. But more importantly, I've learned how to grow food, save seeds, graft trees, raise some animals, etc. And when I move in to a larger piece of land in a few years, I already know what works and what doesn't, what I like doing and what I don't, and how to avoid many of the common mistakes that new homesteaders make. So, start now. If you don't have a yard, grow in containers. Read and learn. I can't recommended Gaia's Garden and Squarefoot Gardening enough.

I am relatively new to this subject and these books have been useful for me:

The Urban Homestead A good introductory book that touches on a lot of relevant topics.

Gaia's Garden This is not specifically a homesteading book but it is a very useful book for growing food and learning about small scale permacultural design.

Four Season Harvest Another useful book for growing, especially for those of us in cold climates.

Country Wisdom & Know How A fun reference for many homestead topics.

One more photo: http://imgur.com/aSTCU

Four-Season Harvest by Elliot Coleman was invaluable. He targets commercial growers, but it's a handy guide for any of us trying to grow year-round in the north.

Greenhouse film

Floating row cover

Note, no affiliate id and I'm not associated with the above, it's just where we bought our supplies (and I can't say enough great things about Jonny's, we've been very happy with them)

We put the hoops up and then covered with the agribon when it first started to hit the low 30's. Once our lows started reaching the teens at night, I put the greenhouse film over the row cover.

On sunny days, you absolutely need to go out and pull the plastic cover back. I was lazy and lost my lettuce due to heat stress during a week where it was in the 20's during the day. Yes, it does get that hot.

You're right, you need cool weather crops. Spinach, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, kale, beets, lettuce.... those all do fantastic. I'd imagine peas would too but it just seemed like too much of a hassle trying to trellis peas under hoops.

As far as challenges we faced. We started the broccoli in August but the variety really needed a cold snap and then warm spell to produce. So, it grew slow all winter and then we ended up getting our first harvest in March. And, again, you need to be on top of venting the hoops when it's sunny. Watering can be a bit of a pain as well. I only had a hose so I had to drain the hose after I watered each time. Of course, there's not nearly as much evaporation in the winter so watering is less frequent.

On the plus side... there really is nothing like a carrot that's only been grown in the cold. They're as sweet as candy. There's also nothing like trudging through a foot of snow and coming back in with half a pound of fresh spinach for a pizza.

https://www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Growers-Handbook-Enthusiasts/dp/0932551068

The two brothers who wrote this book did so with the intention of science minded 10 year olds being able to grow their own mushrooms. You can find spores very easily online that can be delivered straight to your door.

Ah I see. Well here are some things on my list, I think it's different from gardener to gardener.

seed starter with heat

Kevlar sleeves for prickly plants and tomatoes that make me itch

seed stamp for planting

square foot gardening book

knee pads

garden clogs

gloves I go through gloves like crazy!

plant markers

gardening set just some basic tools

bucket organizer

of course there are lots of other things that you might want like seeds, tomato cages, kits for building your own raised beds they are all available from amazon, so it really depends on what you like and want to grow. I don't know if this helps you any? Maybe plan out your garden and what you want to grow then you'll know what you need?

if its your first house can i suggest a couple books?


http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Second-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278971308&sr=1-1

or



Intro to Permaculture by Mill Mollison
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Permaculture-Bill-Mollison/dp/0908228082


p.s. pssssst... get rid of the lawn and put in something useful and beautiful.

Winter squash. I grew a 10x10 plot of squash, it might just get you through winter. Grow a variety of different types, squash for immediate use and squash for storage. Look up Carol Deppe, she wrote: http://www.amazon.com/The-Resilient-Gardener-Production-Self-Reliance/dp/160358031X

Plant whatever you're going to eat. I recommend oats and wheat if you get the space. I love having a sickle in the house. Great conversation starter, and gets rid of pesky salesman as well.

Here's a book recommendation for you:http://www.amazon.com/Self-sufficient-Life-How-Live/dp/0789493322/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255627396&sr=8-2

John Seymour shows you exactly how to parcel out your space. It's the bible of homesteading.

>without livestock, there will be no natural fertilizers.

WTF? Almost any organic waste is a fertilizer. Rotting food scraps are a fertilizer. Compost is a fertilizer. Most animal shit can be used as a fertilizer, even human shit. I refer to the Humanure Handbook. Kind of weird to fixate on cows as the only species that can take a shit. It speaks to the culture you were brought up in.

For those just getting started, Square Foot Gardening is great, it's a good starting point for getting in the habit of maintaining a garden, for making good use of small spaces, and for learning about gardening.

How to Grow More Vegetables is a fantastic book. It is a great reference book on sustainable gardening, and self-sufficiency gardening. It is used by several programs as a textbook to teach sustinence gardening in third-world countries.

Carrots Love Tomatoes is a great book for learning about companion planting.

I just ordered Gardening When it Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times. I haven't read it yet, so I can't give a review, but it is reviewed very favorably. My understanding is that it presents a more old-fashioned, traditional method of gardening that requires less water, less fertilization, etc.

Good luck, and let us know what you think of any books you try!

Square Foot Gardening.

Whoa! One or the other. One of the biggest reasons people drop out of gardening as a hobby is that they start with too much - too big a plot, too ambitious a plan. Start small.

Sepp Holzer is also from Austria and has done some great things and written a few books.

Toby Hemenway's book, Gaia's Garden, is fantastic.

If you only care about growing vegetables in a garden bed, there are a lot of books on how to get started and any one of them would work for you. Go to a used book store and see what they have, I'm sure you'll find something you like.

Well, as someone who worked a blue collar job while studying philosophy in my leisure time, I'd have to say I've come to the same conclusion. Plan on moving out west and joining an ecovillage/worker cooperative. You might want to look into permaculture for your gardening, better yields through organic farming.

(Not trying to one-up you, just saying that thanks to the wide-spread nature of information, you don't have to be an academic elite to come to such conclusions)

> Gaia's Garden

First search result is some woo-woo New-Agey crap site. I think this is what you meant? Looks like a very good book. May have to pick it up.

I don't have any personal experience, but I know of a couple of books on the subject:

Small-Scale Grain Raising, Second Edition: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains, for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers

Homegrown Whole Grains: Grow, Harvest, and Cook Wheat, Barley, Oats, Rice, Corn and More

Northeast U.S. I am fortunate to have access to land that my family owns on the outskirts of a city. Don't let your situation hold you back though, you can get experience growing things at any scale. I recommend checking out container gardening, helping someone in their garden, finding a community garden you could rent some space in, or volunteering at a farm.

Experiment, fail, learn, and have fun.

There's an excellent book called The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live it that has a great deal of advice on this topic. It covers 5 acre farms down to small apartment gardens and how to grow what you like to eat. There's a wealth of info in that book on SO many things, I can't recommend it enough!

I don't have a definitive answer to you, but I will point you to a resource that is incredibly useful on these questions: The new Organic Gardener. However, we're not talking raised bed, because at a certain size, you need to be able to weed with a hoe or wheel hoe, use a mechanized planter, etc. This is a more traditional style market gardening, except Coleman takes a 100% organic approach, and discusses crop rotation, timing, spacing, green manure, etc.

This book does not talk about pollination or seed saving. I haven't found a good source of info on this, but I'm sure there are some good books.

We have four large raised beds, plus raspberries and fiddleheads. Two are quite sunny, so we rotate sunny crops between them, with two trellises on the north side for climbers like peas and cukes. The other two are shadier and we plant greens exclusively in one, and a mix of greens, carrots and beets in the other. With a raised bed system, you don't really have the real-estate (at least we don't) to do green manure or fallowing, so we maintain soil fertility with lots of compost (kitchen waste, home-made leaf compost, and some bought sheep manure).

http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Gourmet-Medicinal-Mushrooms-Stamets-ebook/dp/B004GTLS2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396469718&sr=8-1&keywords=growing+mushrooms

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396469733&sr=8-2&keywords=growing+mushrooms

My complaint about these books is that they are geared for exactly what you're talking about and not necessarily low-tech home cultivation. They cover just about everything you would need.

TMC gives:


Spawn Run:

Humidity: 90-100%

Substrate Temp: 78-84F

Duration: 10-14days

CO2: 20,000PPM or 20% by volume

Fresh Air Exchanges: 0

Light: None



Pinning:

Humidity: 95%

Air Temp: 55-60F

Duration: 7-14 days

CO2: less than 600PPM

Fresh Air Exchanges: 4/hr

Light: 2000lux / hr for 12 hours a day. Grow-lux type bulbs recommended.

Watering: regular misting once to twice daily until fruiting bodies are 30-40% of harvest size, at which point water is used to prevent cracking.



Cropping:

Humidity: 85-92%

Air Temp: 60-64F

Duration: 5-7 weeks

CO2: less than 600PPM

Fresh Air Exchanges: 4-6 per hour

Flushing Interval: 10 days.

Light: 2000lux / hr for 12 hours a day. Grow-lux type bulbs recommended.



Edit: Giving credit where credit is due. It's a good book. Buy it.

Read Paul Stamets book Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, and also The Mushroom Cultivator which details a lot of info on spore storage and culture practises.

Its so easy to get one contam spore into whatever you're doing - ordinary air has so many contam spores in just 1cm^3, its almost impossible to work 100% sterile. But not to worry: the best we can do as cultivators is hold off the inevitable. A good cultivator will do what he or she can to work clean but all the time understands that all grows will ultimately end in contamination - thats just natures way.

The contaminations themselves often sporulate on the surface of cube spores which after finding residence on nutrient media will then 'piggy-back' using the spores which touch each other. The contaminations can often be 50 times smaller, and so can easily rest like a pest on the spores surface. An electron microscopy picture can really show you well what I'm trying to say here. They also reproduce far faster than their larger basidiospore cousins in the cubensis family, so can out compete them for the available resources that you have so kindly provided for them.

Its not that having a lot of spores in a syringe is a bad thing, its just that throughout my experience with cubes I've found that 'less is more' - the more spread out the spores are from each other, the more you can isolate the good strains and culture out the contams. :)

*humanure

I recommend this book if you're interested.

Human shit can make great fertilizer if treated properly. We should be using it in this way a lot more.

https://www.amazon.com/Humanure-Handbook-Guide-Composting-Manure/dp/0964425831/

All New Square Foot Gardening II: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591865484/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_0BXJAbCB1CWG0

Hi, I ran a garden consulting business for several years and worked with a number of preppers.

The one book you want is called The Square Foot Garden, it allows you to maximize the space you have available. One 4'x4'x6" is capable of pulling out hundreds of pounds of produce if you follow the instructions.

All of this is worthless information unless you start learning gardening in your free time.

There's definitely some community gardens in your area. Either ran by a community college, church group, or gardening group. You need to start volunteering there, or be willing to start your own garden. You can start a high potential Square Foot Garden for about $150.

Everyone's first garden is going to have a lot of failures. It takes a few years of growing to really get the hang of it.

You wouldn't go out and buy an airplane for SHTF without taking some time to learn how to fly it. It would be a disaster if you never started the engine and now you're flipping through a manual trying to learn how to fly. The same is true with gardening. Only practical experience is useful.

I have to also recommend the Square Foot Gardening book, mostly for all it has to offer someone who is kind of starting with the basics. Once I read that I then branched off to various web sites, including reddit. MIGardener, while in Michigan and not at all your climate or mine, has tons of videos on youtube that are great for the beginner. If you follow him on Facebook you'll get a notification when he puts up a new video on youtube (though he has enough now you could lose a whole weekend watching them). He also just started selling seeds for $0.99, so if you're looking for an online seller, there you go.
My first garden, a 4' x 4' raised bed, was done strictly according to the Square Foot Gardening (SFG) method. I learned so much that first season about timing, soil, watering, etc., and even had some very successful veggies! My second season didn't go so well but that had nothing to do with what I had or hadn't learned. This is my third season and I've started several plants inside, ready to put them into my garden in a month or so. I will still be using all that I learned from my SFG book though I have a better idea of what plants I can crowd more than he recommends. Regardless, the book is still vital reference material for me. I even consulted it Saturday night for some seedling information.
For the existing plants, you might want to google them specifically (ie, 'pruning rosemary' or 'caring for my rosemary bush'). I got a ruled notebook and made one page per veggie/fruit that I was interested in and noted the information I found that was specifically important to me. The other stuff just kind of lays dormant in your brain until you get more involved in gardening and then it just pops out when needed! Good luck and enjoy! (I too plant tomatoes though I don't care for them much, unless in pico de gallo. I started 8 different types this season because it's so fun to watch them grow!!)

https://smile.amazon.com/All-Square-Foot-Gardening-Revolutionary/dp/1591865484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486443200&sr=8-1&keywords=square+foot+gardening

https://www.amazon.com/All-Square-Foot-Gardening-Revolutionary/dp/1591865484/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

My wife bought square foot gardening and has been getting decent results playing around the last couple years. We’ve had tomatoes, kale, spinach, cucumbers, squash, eggplant...bunch of herbs, micro greens, etc. built 2 3X9 beds from materials purchased at Home Depot and pretty much followed that guys advice.

Edit: She says we are like 7A/6B so should be similar. The only thing that failed was corn because we didn’t have enough space to plant enough to make it work.

"All New Square Foot Gardening" book by Mel Bartholomew.

I own a business doing gardening consulting, training, and installs. The Square Foot Garden technique is simply the best and easiest and the methodology behind it brain-dead-simple. Any time I'm at a prepper fair I'm the guy hanging out with the old ladies in the "grow your own food!" booth, have a gay old time chatting it up about azaleas and squash.

If you want simple and results for cheap there is not another technique out there and this one book covers everything. I have not yet come across a use-case where the SFG was not the best for a gardening beginner. There are advanced techniques to gardening not covered in this book, but this book is the golden ticket.

Note: the old ladies also recommend this book.

If you haven't already, introduce yourself to permaculture. A good start is Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway and this video right here by Geoff Lawton.

Toby Hemenway. This book has some discussion of the non-native issue. This video might be the one you're looking for. See also this discussion thread.

One Straw Revolution

Teaming with Microbes

Teaming with Nutrients

Master Cho's Lessons

Gaia's Garden

This is a good base into the natural side of things, if that interests you at all.

Gaia's Garden, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle are two great ones. Gaia's Garden regards permaculture and making your garden more in touch with what occurs in nature. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, while it is not a "Gardening" book, is a great read and was what inspired me to start a garden as soon as I moved out of my apartment to the country.

>we've got to fight to survive

Absolutely. Giving up is certainly worse. When I first learned of the economic and energy aspects of collapse I thought things would fall apart much sooner than they did. It's almost excruciatingly slow once you see how untenable the trajectory is. The good news is you can take action personally to be less dependant on the failing system and to help others wake up.

If you're looking for some positive ways to prepare, consider Prosper by Martenson and Taggart, this intro to permaculture, this intro to Appropriate Technology, and/or this collapse-aware career book.

Good luck with your upcoming semester. You've come so far, and you'll be glad you finished what you started.

Successful organic gardening and farming is a question of figuring out how to turn what seem like liabilities into assets. It seems like you have too much sun. Try putting up some shade cloth to block out sun during the most intense parts of the day. Mulch your plants. A lot. Mulch will save you.

Read some books. Eliot Coleman's books are fabulous, and contain a lot of good general information even though the author lives in Maine. I particularly recommend Four Season Harvest. Gaia's Garden is great, and is well suited to someone who owns very little land. Teaming with Microbes is an easy-to-read introduction to bringing your soil to life. And Roots Demystified has some great information about how to best design watering systems for specific plants you're growing. These books all have good pest-fighting information.

You can PM me if you have any questions. Get started!

At the time, I didn't own a mill so a friend of mine offered to grind it for me. I ended up with about 15lbs of flour in total. I recall being happy about the yield but I honestly couldn't tell you if it was good or not. I'd have to go back to my old notes to calculate the total area I planted to come up with a sq ft yield. As far as how much flour would result from the wheat in this photo - I'm not sure. Not much.

For future plantings, I want to talk to someone from my local extension to see if there is a recommended wheat variety for my area. I bought some random hard red winter wheat berries from amazon and planted it. For all I know, it was terribly suited to my climate.

Since then, my wife bought me a mill that I've been happy with: https://www.reddit.com/r/Breadit/comments/7mr7sw/adventures_in_milling_first_whole_grain_loaf/

If you're interested in reading more, I highly recommend Logdson's book: Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers, 2nd Edition - https://www.amazon.com/Small-Scale-Grain-Raising-Processing-Nutritious/dp/1603580778

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Scale-Grain-Raising-Processing-Nutritious/dp/1603580778

1. I read a book called Paradise Lot that talked about a couple good sources of info on permaculture in the UK. First is Plants for a Future which is a neat database whose testing grounds are based in the UK. Second is a man named Martin Crawford, who has spent a lot of energy on designing temperate food dorests.
   
   
2. I'd imagine a loooong time. So long a time that I think it would be good to have zero expectations. I have no experience in this subject though, so don't take my word on it. I myself am interested in the amount of space needed for self sufficiency, the books I've read (about... conventional gardening) reported around 4,000 ft^2 needed to grow half the food a small family would need. Perhaps you could designate this amount of land to gardening vegetables and the rest to developing a forest garden?
   
   3)I know absolutely nothing about this subject, you're on your own :)

This is tradd cotter's book. He is a legend. It will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about growing mushrooms. All the teks and the ones he uses to get insane yields. He is an inspiration literally lol. https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Mushroom-Farming-Mycoremediation-Experimental/dp/1603584552

Over at r/seedstock we have nearly 500 listings of places to buy seeds and the like. Do your own research though, while people have commented on those they've purchased from in the past, there are many submissions that have no such comments. Between c-ray and I, many are permaculture-oriented, but a few are your typical mail order nursery fare.

You probably want to think about fruit trees. In the central Illinois region, you've probably alot of choice in that regard. Pecans and walnuts will do fine, almonds are probably too iffy. Apples of all types, more than a few pears, apricots and cherries and peaches. All sorts of berries should do well, blackberry, blueberry and the like. Grapevines too, for that matter. All of these things will reduce your need to till, since they continue to fruit year after year without replanting.

You could also check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Perennial-Vegetables-Artichokes-Gardeners-Delicious/dp/1931498407

My mother-in-law bought it for me for Christmas, and I like it quite a bit. Good for ideas. I don't know that half of what's in there is anything I'd ever want to eat, but the other half is still 80 or 90 edible plants most of which I was quite unfamiliar with.

Also, do you have any chickens? 3 acres is enough to consider having a sizable flock, and their poop's as important as any of the eggs.

After various self-experiments on my land and reading up on intensive grow methods (e.g. Jeavons), my back-of-the envelope estimate is 5000 square feet/person. You can get it lower but it's increasingly risky, lacking redundancy for crop failure. That's if people are willing to do some of the work themselves and not wait for monoagriculture to bail them out, because gardening for subsistence is labor intensive. Also assumes a largely vegan diet, without supplementation from hunting/fishing. For a population of 80,000, that works out to about 9200 acres.

If he really wants to step it up, this book by Eliot Coleman. He lives in Maine and gardens year round!

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Edition/dp/1890132276/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410619791&sr=8-2&keywords=year+round+gardening

Whether or not your 'flush' was needed depends on what was in your fertilizer as you were using bottled chemicals and not organic inputs... Organic gardening relies on organic inputs decomposing in soil via microbial activity, broken down and fed to plants through a mycorrhizal fungal network. You don't need to use any sort of bottled nutrients if you are gardening organically. I'm no expert gardener, but I've worked in a few gardens and harvested a few plants, and I seem to see the healthiest, hardiest plants grown in plain soil with no bottled nutrients. Check out the book "Teaming with Microbes" by Jeff Lowenfels and explore the soil food web http://www.soilfoodweb.com/ if you want to learn about organic gardening. If you want to learn more Jeff has written a three part series, the next book is Teaming with Nutrients and lastly Teaming with Fungi.

Both if you can. Chickens as they are omnivores and will eat almost everything. For plants you can pick and choose what will do best for you. In the case you are presenting I would suggest getting plants that people in dryer or hotter climates grow. Start growing them now along with other plants for diversity.

Some books I suggest

• The Whole Seed Catalog 2019 Great seeds from across the world and for sale. Also includes guides on how they taste and some info on growing them.
  
• Four-Season Harvest
  
• Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving Along with this I suggest learning how to pressure can food. I am not aware of a good book to teach this.

I just took a look at your post history and it looks like you are in Newfoundland, CA?

I think your best bet is leafy greens. The leaf arrives before flowers, fruits and seeds, so is a safer option than most. Many greens will grow while there is enough sun and then stop, but will not die in a greenhouse and so can still be harvested in December and January.

Here's a Mother Earth News article on winter hoophouse crops. If you are actually providing some supplemental heat you are way ahead of the game. If you've got twenty bucks to spare or have a good library, get a hold of Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman—a huge resource for winter growing.

First check with your landlord with what you can do. Then get a bunch of gardening books from the library. Right now is when you get things in for a fall harvest. In late July through August is when you would want to get in winter crops. Yes, you can grow things in Toronto in winter you just need protection. I would see what your local nursery has in the way of vegi and herb starts and get some good potting soil and put them in containers. Spend some extra cash and see if you can get a large healthy Tomato that is filled with flowers and put it in at least a 5 gallon pot.

Yup, listen to this guy OP.

To add some things;

Jerusalem artichoke, drought resistant pest resistant and most people won't know what they are. We do sweet grapes in the backyard and wine grapes and hops in the front. Neighborhood kids leave them alone but I don't know if you want to invest in plants that take years on leased land.

Do lots of herbs and trade for other stuff at the farmers market. I'd also do lots of onions, squash and other cellar items for winter storage or get a large supply of jars and some canning minions. If codes allow it use tires as raised beds and pallets for compost bin partitions. Bee boxes help everyone, could be moved later and I have yet to see ours disappear and we live in the ghetto.

I recommend reading this book for anyone growing anything anywhere...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1890132527/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1394675515&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40

Perennial Vegetables: From Artichoke to Zuiki Taro, a Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious, Easy-to-grow Edibles

The Rusted Vegetable Garden, both the blog and the YouTube channel is good for vegetables.

Bookwise, the Vegetable Gardener's Bible comes up a lot. Gaia's Garden is a really great resource for a full home landscape/permaculture too.

I recommend a book called Four Season Harvest by Elliot Coleman. Great introduction on how you can produce year round.

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Edition/dp/1890132276

I have read all of these front to back multiple times. I read the grow bible 5 times before I even started purchasing equipment and propagating seeds. Do it right, take the time to do the research. You will find there are many cost effective ways to grow amazing Cannabis.

True Living Organics: The Ultimate Guide to Growing All-Natural Marijuana Indoors

The Cannabis Grow Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing Marijuana for Recreational and Medical Use

Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Science for Gardeners)

Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition (Science for Gardeners)

Fundamentals of Horticulture 4th Edition

The Secret Life of Plants: a Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man

edit: If you cant tell I am an organic cultivator. ;D

No. To the best of my understanding this would just be more trouble than it's worth.

Please read the Mutualis dynamics part of this wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza

I assume that with enough study this could be possible. We may need to learn more about the physiology of this dynamic. Because the exchange made is carbs for the fungi and minerals for the plant theoretically you might be able to make this possible by setting up a concentration across a membrane.

However this might not work based on the way the mycelia naturally colonizes the root cells. As in, if the membrane doesn't resemble root cells accurately the mycelia might not be able to colonize the surface.

Another potential problem is that this process might not be passive diffusion. A live root cell might need to actively, costing energy, pass the carb to the fungi.

Of course the answers to all of the above could probably depend on species.

All of these are things that need exploring. By all means, dive in. If you can figure it out there's money to be made for sure.

I recommend this book as an intro: https://www.amazon.ca/Teaming-Fungi-Organic-Growers-Mycorrhizae/dp/1604697296?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duc12-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1604697296

Yeah I plan to do fully organic, I am working from the methods from this book which is about making small intensively planted beds, and also learning how to make your own compost and setting up a relatively self sustaining system.

I've been reading a lot about soil science/the soil food web, and how to try to 'feed the soil and the soil microbes' instead of the plant.

I've also been reading some of the basics of permaculture design too. I'm really into the ecological perspective and the ideal of designing habitat and interplanting things to attract more beneficial insects, etc. (also design that makes microclimates like you say).

I'm in a pretty arid climate in southern Colorado. Zone 6a I think. But I generally can keep it watered enough to meet the needs of most vegetables. My region is famous for it's chile peppers, which I'm also doing too.

Really it's an experiment to see how much food I can produce in a small space at the moment. I'm trying to do a lot of calorie rich crops like squash/beans/sweet potatoes/ and other assorted veggies. This is my first time trying to do it at a more thorough level this year. I've done some work with a friend helping him grow aquaponic veggies before, but this is my first time with my own soil garden and learning all the different aspects of it.

But yeah, I ask because I do want to eventually start growing a wide variety of different things. I'm on some of the real basic garden vegetables for now, but I think I'll be keeping this going and expanding it in the future as much as possible, especially because I like doing it so much.

Purple Nurple

I have tons of passions. My biggest passions are equal rights, justice, and farming. Equality and justice are really important to me and farming is something I really enjoy doing.

This book reminds me of my passion of farming

You absolutely must get this book: The Bountiful Container. It's said to be the bible for vegetable container gardening, full of info, and it's written so delightfully that you want to run out and plant all the things.

I really like The Self-sufficient Life and How to Live It when it comes to dreaming about homesteading. It touches on everything, from carpentry to threshing wheat to birthing animals. It is WAY more than I will ever actually do, but I love flipping through it and imagining. You can find good used copies for pretty cheap.

A good start would be picking up and reading Eliot Coleman's book The New Organic Grower. It is very readable, and you can use it to come up with your own plan for growing year-round.

https://www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Growers-Handbook-Enthusiasts/dp/0932551068

http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Kuo/e/B001ILI9G2/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603582142/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800/ref=pd_sim_b_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=0V56Q93CSRKQYV2W1C0B http://www.amazon.com/Mycelium-Running-Mushrooms-Help-World/dp/1580085792/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0V56Q93CSRKQYV2W1C0B http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472030361/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472031260/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394519922/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580085792/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is a really good book

If your serious about it, https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800 , this is your fucking bible.

Mushroom god paul stamets has made leather out of mushrooms. His hat that he wears is mushroom leather and is over 3 yrs old.

The indoor mushroom growing guide. Great book.

I'm also looking at other non-mushroom eating ideas like using the mycilium as packing/building materiel.

Paul Stamets cover everything in this book. Avoiding syringes will require you to use agar methods and this guy does a great job of explaining it all.

I'm not sure of the proper answer but I bet you could find it here, I've heard good things about this book from a researcher that I trust: https://www.amazon.com/Humanure-Handbook-Guide-Composting-Manure/dp/0964425831

While I don't have experience with this Lowe's version, the concept is pretty standard and is one that my wife and I used in the past. The concept is called "Square foot gardening" and the idea is to plant a different crop in each square. Now considering that this raised bed is 48" squared and the number of squares are 6 in one direction and 5 in the other (as opposed to 4 in both directions), what you plant is going to be a bit more cramped.

Personally, I didn't like the idea and we just use raised beds that I built myself. You have to be very calculating regarding how you plant things. This is obviously a good thing. I just didn't like the super duper planning that it called for. My garden is currently 16'x24' and I have a good number of raised beds, so I don't need to be so perfect when it comes to the amount of space I use.

When buying something like this, realize that you could probably make this yourself for $20 or less. If you're being sold solid materials and it's less than $30 bucks, I'd say go for it and buy it. If the markup is high, forget it! Remember, 2 2x8 ($5 each) and some nails or screws (which you probably have already) are all you need. You can use anything to mark those squares. If you don't want to spend any more money, you can simply drill screws along the frame at 1' intervals and string yarn or anything of the like across.

edit: clarity

Awesome work! Gardening is fun, and a lot of work!

I was just given This Book it has helped me tremendously with my garden this year. Definitely worth the read and something to take into consideration for next year :) Lots of great advice on how to make your garden more manageable, easier to maintain, more fruitful, and less expensive.

>growing my own food

You say that like it's a bad thing! Growing our own food is one of the most powerful things regular people can do to help break the vile corporate stranglehold we find ourselves locked into. You'd be surprised how much food you can grow in a relatively small space, with relatively little effort. This book and its associated Wikipedia entry outline a good method.

Well, four that I can think of off the top of my head would have to be:

• The Four Season Farm Gardener's Cookbook
  
• Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre
  
• All New Square Foot Gardening
  
• The Vegetable Gardener's Bible
  
  Also, here's a channel on YouTube that has an ENDLESS amount of organic gardening information. GrowingYourGreens

Just start small and you will learn a little more each season. I started last year in pretty much the same place, with a square foot garden. Ordered some seeds from a seed library local to my region. I was shocked that anything at all came up from those seeds! I grew a huge crop of the most beautiful and wonderful simple vegetables in two 4x4 boxes. (cucumbers, tomatos, lettuce, carrots). Some sort of beatle attacked all of my green beans. And the lettuce grew quick in the early spring but most of it rotted in the ground because who can eat that much lettuce! Now I try to share the excess.. I ended up giving away bags and bags of cucumbers on craigs list and made my very first batch of homeade tomato sauce at the end of summer! This year we added a compost bin and a third box. We are flush with radishes right now - which come up super quick :) http://www.amazon.com/Square-Foot-Gardening-Second-Revolutionary/dp/1591865484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464224162&sr=8-1&keywords=square+foot+garden

Can you be more specific?
Plants depend on the climate, season, soil depth, companion planting, sun and shadow availability. Planting in a rooftop doesn't affect that. I'm in Mexico City, so I can plant most plants during most of the year.

You can use this map to find your hardiness zone (if it's Vienna, which I'm guessing from your history, it's zone 6). And use a hardiness zone planting guide:
http://veggieharvest.com/calendars/zone-6.html
http://www.almanac.com/plants/hardiness-zone/6

As for cultivation techniques, with limited space you should be looking at intensive gardening techniques:
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/intensive.html

I'd go for square foot gardening, it's nice and simple.

Please let me know if any of this is unclear, or if you were looking for something else.

Here is a good starter book http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591865484
You can use this method for small containers that you put on your balcony.

And a good reference book http://www.amazon.com/dp/1603424768

Good luck!

Baker Creek Herloom seeds has a very useful website. Under all of their plants they have reviews. Also if you go to their Facebook page they have a guy named Matt that teaches a lot about gardening on their live feeds. Also a good starter book that I enjoyed just staring out was [square foot gardening ](All New Square Foot Gardening II: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591865484/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_xoHRybVDJT2Y6)
And The [Vegetable Gardener's Bible ](The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, 2nd Edition: Discover Ed's High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions: Wide Rows, Organic Methods, Raised Beds, Deep Soil https://www.amazon.com/dp/160342475X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fpHRybBXSA45A) if you have any gardening questions you can PM if you would like and I would love to help.
Also I'll compile a list of my favorite resources for gardening.

We did raised beds when we lived in town. Check out the book All New Square Foot Gardening. Lots of good info in there.

Since you say that you live in a rural area do you live in a house with a yard? One really good way of saving money on food is to start a garden. Gardening is a skill that is fun and can be learned. It is also a fun hobby. If you use the raised bed method then there is almost no maintenance work needed once you have it all set up. Another popular method is Square Foot Gardening. If you use permaculture methods then there is no need to constantly buy fertilizer.

From September to November we will be spending $0 on buying fruit. The apple and pear trees from the community garden provides all the fruit we need for this period. All you can eat pears and apples does get a bit boring after a while though. We have enough winter squash to last us into next year.

Our community garden patch is 30x30 feet. We don't grow food on all of it. It supplies most of our vegetables during the fall.

We kind of overdid it on the Swiss Chard this year. Been eating way to much of that stuff. The beets were nice this year as well. (Don't forget that you can eat beet greens.) Still eating the potatoes from the fall harvest. Hopefully they will last till Christmas but I'm not sure. The New Zealand spinach was nice as well. The yellow zucchini was really nice. The tomatoes were wonderful.

Permaculture: A Designer's Manual is considered the bible for permaculture because of how comprehensive it is and how much information is packed into that book. It won't explain all of the effective strategies for different climates that we've developed over the last 30 years but I would definitely start there for the foundation. Then move on to books on topics that are specific to a particular topic within permaculture design.

​

My Recommendations:

• Permaculture: A Designers Manual - https://www.permaculturedesignersmanual.com/product-page/permaculture-a-designers-manual
  
• Gaia's Garden - https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298
  
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond - https://www.amazon.com/Rainwater-Harvesting-Drylands-Beyond-2nd/dp/0977246434
  
• dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Civilizations-David-R-Montgomery/dp/0520272900
  
• The New Wild: Why Invasive Species will be Nature's Salvation - https://www.amazon.com/New-Wild-Invasive-Species-Salvation/dp/0807039551
  
• The Worm Farmer’s Handbook: Mid- to Large-Scale Vermicomposting for Farms, Businesses, Municipalities, Schools, and Institutions - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603587799/
  
• The Humanure Handbook, 4th Edition: Shit in a Nutshell - https://www.amazon.com/Humanure-Handbook-4th-Shit-Nutshell/dp/0964425882

Again, great questions. Here's a video I did on hugelkultur a bit ago. I don't recommend going to my website at the moment though because it's been recently hacked and I'm working on cleaning it up. The youtube video will be fine though. Check out that video, if you have more questions, feel free to ask.

You can do the flat raised bed idea, and I did the same last year, but I believe you will get more benefit from doing the piqued hills.

Grey water collection and rainwater harvesting are excellent ideas. I don't know if you could make use of it, but here is a super cool idea for a ram pump which requires no external input other than elevation change. Other than that, I don't know much about water tanks.

One really cool thing I've seen used is where people dig a trench under their garden and bury weeping tile in that trench which snakes around their garden. Then they connect that weeping tile to their downspout from there gutters and when it rains, they get a massive deep soak in their garden.

Swales are a fantastic thing to think about as they will help keep water on your land. Swales mixed with heavy mulching are a huge force in keeping your land irrigated. Check out greening the desert for more on that.

As for the PDC, you don't even have to pay for it. I googled free online PDC and found this.

http://www.permaculturedesigntraining.com/

If you want to learn more about it, there are amazing books which can help.

Gaia's Garden and Sepp Holzer's Permaculture

That's awesome that your SO is taking that course. She'll probably learn some really cool sustainable farming things.

Also, check out http://www.permies.com. There's tons of info there, and super amazing people who are very helpful.

sadly, permaculture has been the victim of greenwashing. Check out Gaia's Garden: http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Second-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298

The core concept of permaculture is to integrate systems into each other so intimately that the waste streams of a single process become input for others and eventually recycle into the first. Rainwater harvesting, grey-water plumbing, black-water irrigation and purification, and food production can all be tied together to make the most of the water that you collect, and by mulching the compostable materials on the property you can create healthy happy soil that is exponentially safer than pumping in pesticides and fertilizers to make it viable.

Often, its not that technology has been overlooked, Its that technology harms the land that it is used on. Such as row planting and mechanized plowing. By planting only ONE crop, the farm's soil instantly loses most mirco-nutrient content due to lack of plant diversity. The large machines come in and destroy the fungal and bacterial water networks that take many years to develop. With these gone, and the crop layer having been harvested, there is no water or biomass to hold down the top soil and we get dust storms, while the farmer has to spend tons of money to aerate and fertilize the sand which he hopes to grow food on again.

Sorry to be so long winded, but Permaculture takes every method by its input/output and matches it to a system that can handle those flows. IF you can create a system that is healthy for the planet, uses less (or no) oil, and creates healthy food for millions, then permaculture can save agriculture, but imho, its gotten too big to tame, and we need to look at other avenues to provide food security.

i can personally attest to the benefits of building your garden this way. i think i pulled 2 weeds all season and my tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers and lettuce did great! i have already started next year's garden and can't wait to try a few new things! some added bonuses (other than not having to till) are that with this technique you don't have to disrupt the ecosystem under the soil and the cardboard actually draws the worms up into your garden, adding even more fertilizer. i will never build garden any other way! an excellent book that talks about this and other ways to create and work with a natural ecosystem is gaia's garden. it teaches you how to have a beautiful, useful yard/space with minimal work.

Don't know about adobe construction, but Gaia's Garden is a great introduction to practical permaculture. The photo on the cover is from a farm in Arizona.

Reading "Gaias Garden" right now. Lifechanging stuff.

Permaculture can help save our world!

Everyone here has already covered all I was going to say. In some of your comments you said you wanted to learn more about permaculture might I recommend Gaia's Garden. It is very general but it gave me a really great foundation for permaculture and the lists and ideas are fantastic.

The two absolute best books on the subject. I'd also recommend Gaia's Garden for some useful plant lists. Also, West Coast Food Forestry is a nice comprehensive list of little known plants.

You might consider what kind of gardener you want to be more philosophically, too.

Do you want to grow a food ecosystem? Permaculture is your thing - Gaia's Garden would be a good book for you

https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298/

Do you need compact lazy-persons garden? Square Foot Gardening

"Square Foot Gardening" (Beginners Guide) as a start.

Like the idea of a themed garden like u/SedatedApe61 recommended? Groundbreaking Food Gardens has loads of ideas along those lines

https://www.amazon.com/Groundbreaking-Food-Gardens-Change-Garden/dp/161212061X/

There are as many ways to garden as gardeners. Finding the plants that suit both your location and your style of gardening goes a long way.

Depending on how much space you've got, this one is pretty nice: The Backyard Homestead. There's a little bit of everything :)

If you're into permaculture and that kind of thing, I'd recommend Gaia's Garden and Edible Forest Gardens, Vol 2. Be warned, Edible Forest Gardens is a bit like reading an engineering text!

I don't know what you're into, but check out Gaia's garden for ideas on what to plant. You don't have to garden the entire yard, but make what you plant count.

Most people want to enjoy their outdoor space with a seating and dining area too. What a great blank slate you have!

Gaia's Garden is a book written with North America in mind. It has lists of plants by function, layer, and hardiness USDA climate zone.

Plants for the Future is a free online database of 7000 plants. You can search this database by hardiness USDA climate zone, size, soil type, and use (medicinal, edible, soil conditioners, fiber, etc.)

Edible Food Forest is a two volume set of books. The second volume also has lists of plants.

This is a topic that I've just barely started to get into, but right now I'm reading Gaia's Garden and its really interesting so far.

If you have a place where you can grow a few things in the house or outside covered in colder weather, you have more options. Some are tropical. I would say make a list of your favorites. One example of something you could likely grow if you found the right bulbs is saffron. It's often used in Indian cuisine and comes from a variety of crocus. You can grow your own pepper. You can also grow flavorings for old-fashioned candies, herbal teas or tisanes, root beer ... anything you can think of if you look hard enough. Even if you can't grow the exact plant, there are often alternative plants you can grow and get a very similar flavor. Nasturtium flower buds can be made into "poor man's capers". You can grow more than just food. If you are into crafting, you can also make your own plant-based dyes and paints from plants, eggs, and other things.

For a book that lists other plants you may not think of, as well as ways to attract and help wildlife try Gaia's Garden. I think you may also enjoy Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden.

https://www.amazon.com/Resilient-Gardener-Production-Self-Reliance-Uncertain/dp/160358031X

Or anything by the author, Carol Deppe. She also has a website, seed company, and a pretty loyal following.

For primitive survival, the Tom Brown books are nice.

For gardening, there's a great book that just came out, The Resilient Gardener.

In a crisis situation, you don't want to read a book -- you want to have already read the books and learned the skills.

If you really want to take a deep dive into growing grains to feed livestock on a small scale I would recommend giving Small-Scale Grain Raising by Gene Logsdon a read. It is honestly more entertaining than any book about growing barley should be.

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Scale-Grain-Raising-Processing-Nutritious/dp/1603580778/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482955677&sr=8-1&keywords=small+scale+grain+raising

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation
https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Mushroom-Farming-Mycoremediation-Experimental/dp/1603584552

Sweet! If you've never read it before, I recommend this book. Very detailed, easy instructions for various projects. There's so many cool things you can do with fungi.

You're supposed to wait until May for a good reason: weather fluctuations. One night of frost will kill seedlings and young plants. Are you starting with seed? Or buying transplants? Transplants are so much easier, but limited on variety. Peppers and tomatoes are great for containers--they love warm soil, which is easier to obtain in a container, and lots of sunshine. Try mini or dwarf versions of each. Mulch around them to protect them from water loss and chilly (but not freezing) nights.

I started gardening in containers, too. This has been my bible: http://www.amazon.com/McGee-Stuckeys-Bountiful-Container-Vegetables/dp/0761116230
There are a surprisingly many things you can grow in pots: herbs, lettuce, green onions, even peaches and apples. The author even suggests specific varieties that are compatible with growing in containers. Good luck.

I enjoyed The Bountiful Container by Mrs. Stuckey and Nichols McGee. Mrs Nichols McGee runs a nursery not too far from me and I've had the pleasure of emailing with her a few times and she is delightful.

Get some self watering pots from Walmart. That's what I started with. They have a reservoir at the bottom that holds water and gets wicked up by the soil to the roots during the day.

You should be able to get these books from your library:

The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible

and

McGee & Stuckey's Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers

These are two of the first books I found on the subject and they came in handy.

And because Imgur won't let me edit anything in my post via mobile, I will add more info here! I spent about two months researching container growing fruit trees/edible tree/bush before deciding to start with a blood orange and my favorite, lemonade. I'm hoping this helps someone else who might think they can't have a fruit tree due to space.

Although I bought trees on dwarfing rootstock (often called flying dragon rootstock, as that's the plant used to give it stunted growth), you do not need a tree marketed as dwarf. Using a container will naturally impede the process of growth, in addition to pruning.

This is very important because each type of rootstock will give different qualities to the root health. Pick the rootstock that works best for your growing conditions. The book Grow a Little Fruit Tree was invaluable for its information on rootstock alone, although it's geared towards deciduous trees and not evergreens like citrus.

Another helpful book for container gardening that helped me jumpstart my information search was The Bountiful Container. It's American oriented, not Aussie, but lots of helpful principles and ideas all the same.

Another great read, and useful, is this write-up on Daley's Fruit Tree Nursery about using bags (containers) to restrict tree growth in order to net better fruit production. Size restriction can help to produce more per hectare than just letting a tree go (which would be suicide to a home orchard anyways).

You know, the people that will blindly believe the rhetoric they hear from political propaganda outlets are the same that willingly commit genocide.

I prefer literature such as this. My ideal life is a hard earned, satisfying life enjoyed with my family.

Joel Salatin just released an excellent online course, which could totally answer all those questions.

Also, check out the books New Organic Grower and Market Gardener.

But best of all, just contact local farms you admire and see if they have an internship/WWOOF program.

Ultimately, different strokes for different folks. There is no one way to do this. Just observe nature, work with nature and try to optimize energy inputs and outputs.

This is a good book to get a hang on the basics of growing mushrooms: https://www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Growers-Handbook-Enthusiasts/dp/0932551068

However the techniques have advanced over time and I would suggest checking the Shroomery forum guides as well, it's the best place for beginners and advanced growers alike: https://www.shroomery.org/forums/

If you want to start growing psilocybe mushrooms, the best and easiest technique is called PF Tek and you'll find instructions at Shroomery. All you need is to buy some spores online (which are lega), brown rice flour and vermiculite then you're set for growing your first magical friends

It's a great hobby, whether you are growing active or edible mushrooms

This should do you.

https://www.mushrooms.com/

https://www.thehawkseye.com/

http://shrooms-to-go.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Growers-Handbook-Enthusiasts/dp/0932551068/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1466619391&sr=8-4&keywords=psilocybin+spores

https://www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Handbook-Outdoor-Cultivation/dp/0932551718/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51ayZwCt4zL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR105%2C160_&refRID=5DF57AENFAR3N3834QG0

http://www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Growers-Handbook-Enthusiasts/dp/0932551068

This was what I had. Maybe own it for novelty again but wouldn’t take any worthwhile lessons from it. Super outdated. You can download PDF versions of it free and check it out

https://www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Growers-Handbook-Enthusiasts/dp/0932551068/ref=nodl_

www.amazon.com/Psilocybin-Mushroom-Growers-Handbook-Enthusiasts/dp/0932551068

Here is the mobile version of your link

http://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800

The Mushroom Cultivator is a fantastic book. Can't do without it. Sterile culture, expansion, fruiting, everything. Must have. Same goes for all of Paul Stamets' books, really.

Cloning is actually pretty easy if you have the right environment and a few bits of kit. Good luck! I look forward to photos of your grow.

https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800

No worries man! I’m about to start my fourth grow when my spores come in so I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s such a fun process and I’m constantly learning more and more. You should check out this book called The Mushroom Cultivator. It’s such an invaluable reference tool that I’m constantly flipping through when I’ve got questions.

Edit: It’s a little dated, and PF-Tek was published about 10 years later, but everything in the book is still valuable and informative.

Check out this book by Paul Stamets His work is highly regarded in the mushroom community. You can learn everything you need to know from his books.

This book and this book are the bibles of growing mushrooms. They cover growing both psychoactive and non-psychoactive including Coprinus.

>Using human poop for compost is the "right way?"

No, I'm not saying that using poop for compost is the right way, simply that there is a right way to do it that mitigates the very real issues you've addressed.

I could write a similarly fear-mongering tirade about the dangers of any number of technologies, but that wouldn't invalidate the fact that they can also be utilized safely.

I recommend giving this a read. You can probably find it at a library.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Humanure-Handbook-Composting-Edition/dp/0964425831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347232409&sr=8-1&keywords=the+humanure+handbook

I cannot recommend the Square Foot Gardening book more. All that is required to start is a 4' x 4' raised bed, some soil, a small garden shovel and some seeds and/or plant starts. Its method uses intensive companion planting to naturally reduce the likelihood of pests, and increase yields in a limited amount of space.
There are lots of videos on Youtube to get started, too.

The Square Foot Gardening book really helped me out. It's easy to read, has a whole section dedicated to the different types of garden bed layouts, and a glossary in the back for different plants that goes over when to plant/harvest and what sunlight conditions they do best in. You don't have to have a square foot garden to benefit from this book.

*Edit You should also research the zone you are in to get a better understanding of frost dates. These will tell you when the best times to plant or transplant are as well as how long your growing season is. Also, determine how the sun crosses your property. Doing so will help you determine the best location to start your garden.

Second what u/GrandmaGos says. Companion planting is mostly folklore. I do a little of it myself but I always plant my rosemary with carrots, lavender next to onions, and basil with tomatoes. But it also attracts pollinators which is important.

My mom had a community garden for a large group of kids in a local summer day camp program. Our favorites were strawberries and carrots. Most kids hated veggies and growing their own and seeing how sweet home-grown carrots were made a huge impression on a lot of kids.

For reading, I recommend Raised Bed Revolution, I got some really great plans from that book that look very nice. I also like Square Foot Gardening if you haven't read that already.

Since its a library you're at, is there anyway for the summer you could have little garden craft classes for the kids? That could be fun and keep them interested / invested. Have crafts like painting stones with the names of all the plants for plant markers. Learn about local wildflowers to attract pollinators?

http://www.amazon.com/Square-Foot-Gardening-Second-Edition/dp/1591865484

If you're looking for a vegetable gardening book, my favorite one is Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. It's got everything you need to know about successfully starting and growing a basic vegetable garden from scratch.

I think the best part about this book is that the methods explained in it are pretty much a fool-proof way of growing great plants the very first time. As you gain more first-hand experience, you can start to add, remove or tweak things that make will improve your garden even more.

Square foot gardening is a game changer. Your local library will have a copy, and it's a quick read. A very small square foot garden plot (which you have space for) fed 2 of us all season.

It looks great, but I have criticism:

1. It'll be a bitch cutting grass around it. Even with a weedeater, those interior angles will be hard to get cleanly cut.
   
   
2. I really like the square foot gardening approach to raised beds and this makes that much more complicated.

a good way to get into vegetable gardening is to try square foot gardening. you do not have to use a fancy raised bed, it can be made with cinderblocks but the methods are great for a beginner since it is all outlined in this book. Mel Bartholomew has a proven method that is easy to follow and does not require much in the way of supplies other than soil and seeds.

This is an amazing book for learning what can fit where. Remember that it is more for advanced gardeners so start small. Use it as a guide on long term plans.

This is a great guide to low-cost or free soil creation/amendment It also has a great guide to growing almost every veggie/herb. It works amazingly as a substitution for the very expensive recommended soil in This great guide to planting closer together to avoid weeds

Some ideas for reducing water usage:

Sub-Irrigation (there are a great many ways to do this, this is just one)

Hugelkultur Looks like shit but creates an amazing wood "sponge" under your gardens. After 2 years you pretty much don't need to water again (if done correctly). You also get a constant stream of nutrients from the wood breaking down. It is possible to "contain" hugelkultur beds to create more of a "I mean to do this!" order so people don't think you are just piling shit up everywhere.

1. Does your raised bed have a wood bottom? It should not. Roots need to go down deeper.
   
2. Please look into the book Square Foot Gardening. It really helps with layout, and other issues, for beginners.
   
3. You MUST water your veggies every day temps reach 80F. If the leaves are wilted, they are under a lot of stress and are begging for water.
   
   

Square Foot Gardening can be a good way to get started with raised beds. It has suggestions for plants, spacing and what to fill your beds with. There's also a helpful book.

Over all, just keep in mind that you want to start with what you can handle, what you like to eat, and maybe 1 or 2 things to experiment with. :)

For herbs, make sure you understand which ones come back every year and which ones (like mint!) tend to spread so you don't end up with a mess a couple years down the road.

Oh, and for filling for your raised bed, if you have a garden store or nursery near you they will sell and deliver dirt/compost/etc to fill your bed with. Hardware stores also often provide the same services.

• I have a zoology degree too so that's a fantastic major :) Part of getting my degree included taking a Parasitology class. We had to do a lab about tapeworms, which meant extracting tapeworms from the intestines of a critter (don't want to go into too much detail...). The next day during lecture, our professor came in with a thermos and proceeded to scoop out long, white, stringy tapeworms, then EAT THEM! The whole class was freaking out when he started giggling and told us they were Ramen noodles. It was a class I will never forget no matter how much I'd like to!
  
  
• Most wonderful time
  
  
• Best of luck to you in your studies!
  
  
• In the school of life, I'm trying to learn more about gardening. This book would help me in my studies and to be a more efficient gardener. Thank you for the contest :)

We were using reclaimed barn wood for most of them until the wood fell apart. I think it was mostly 2x8s and 2x6s. There were a couple of 2x12s that we were lucky enough to find and grow some carrots in last year. With raised beds, I love to recommend starting with square foot gardening if you've never done it before because it teaches you so much about soil preparation and maximizing space... Plus the book is a fun read: https://smile.amazon.com/All-Square-Foot-Gardening-Revolutionary/dp/1591865484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525783437&sr=8-1&keywords=square+foot+gardening+book+by+mel+bartholomew

Thanks! Its a great project that can teach alot and just keeps giving. Its an 80/20 thing. How to get 80% of a full size garden in 20% of the space with minimum effort. The guy who wrote the book on it, Mel Barthlolmew was an engineer who specialized in efficiency...So he does a pretty good job, though the book reads goofy AF.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1591865484/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525897028&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=square+foot+gardening+book+by+mel+bartholomew

I highly recommend Gaia's Garden a guide to home scale scale permaculture. It's not specifically homesteading, it's permaculture, but it is a way to supercharge the efficiency of your food production with the leist inputs.
https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298

You should check out Gaia's Garden or a similar permaculture book. As others have said, there's ways to protect your plants without relying on herbicides or weed pulling! :)

Namely, what I've read is that you should plant cover crops that will fight your weeds for you.

Good luck and grats on the baby!

Have a go at Gaia's garden, home scale permaculture design.

It's the textbook in this permaculture class.

• Primitive Technology on YouTube
  
  
• The book by primitive tech
  
  
• The recent AMA by the primitive tech guy
  
  
• Townsends A channel dedicated to exploring the 18th Century lifestyle.
  
  
  
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIqCzQJXvYj9ssCoHq327g how to make everything channel on YouTube that shows how with fairly minimal knowledge and practice you can make functional (although inefficient) tools and items
  
  
• The Society for Creative Anachronism Researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe, non-LARP medieval reenactors that take it quite serious.
  
  
• /r/bushcrafting
  
  
• /r/PrimitiveTechnology/
  
  
• /r/Homesteading/
  
  
• /r/Leathercraft/
  
  
• /r/Fishing/
  
  
• /r/Hunting/
  
  
• /r/Trappit/
  
  
• /r/HomemadeTools/
  
  
• /r/soapmaking/
  
  
• /r/weaving/
  
  
• /r/knitting/
  
  
• /r/candlemaking/
  
  
• Book Country Wisdom & Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land
  
  
• Book Restoration Agriculture
  
  
• Book Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition Paperback
  
  
• Book The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 40th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It Yourself Paperback – October 30, 2012
  
  
  
• Book Five Acres and Independence: A Practical Guide to the Selection and Management of the Small Farm Paperback
  
  
• Book Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival
  
  
• Book Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival
  
  
• Book The Trapper's Bible: The Most Complete Guide on Trapping and Hunting Tips Ever
  
  
• Book The Traditional Bowyer's Bible, Volume 1 ALL of the volumes in this series are great and for that matter all of his books are.

Good for you! I suggest picking up this book: http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Home-Scale-Permaculture-Edition/dp/1603580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377806599&sr=8-1&keywords=gaia%27s+garden It's a great place to start and may very well change the way you think.

US Army Survival Guide

Small Scale Grain Raising

A Barefoot Doctor's Manual

The Home Water Supply

The Walking Dead

You might find these two books interesting:

http://www.amazon.com/Homegrown-Whole-Grains-Harvest-Barley/dp/160342153X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377128301&sr=8-1&keywords=home+grown+grain

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Scale-Grain-Raising-Processing-Nutritious/dp/1603580778/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y

Main thing to watch out for is picking varieties that make it alright to process them yourself - grains that don't have to be de-hulled to be useable are much easier to process without specialized equipment.

Get a proper mill of some kind if you're interested in wholegrain flour. There's reasonably priced options out there that do it alright, and the taste of stuff made with freshly milled wholegrain flour is awesome.

Take a look at ancient grains & older varieties of the usual grains. (a few examples & more info here: http://www.islandgrains.com/how-do-i-thresh-grain-on-a-small-scale/)

Personally I have a tiny plot of flax, that I'm hoping to get some tasty seeds out of. If I were to grow my own grains I'd focus on the ones that are interesting taste-wise. I'd probably go for Hull-less emmer, and rye.

There are tons of farmer/homesteader/gardener memoirs. I think my mom alone probably has a zillion. Unfortunately I haven't read that many myself, but a few titles that I remember from her shelves include:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Enslaved by Ducks

The Egg and I

Hit by a Farm

Here's one that (amazingly enough) she doesn't have, but which is on my to-read list: http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Lot-One-Tenth-Making-Edible/dp/1603583998/

On a more practical front, this guy may change your life ;)

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Edition/dp/1890132276/

http://www.amazon.com/The-Winter-Harvest-Handbook-Greenhouses/dp/1603580816/

ETA: Thought of a few more from mom's collection:

The Dirty Life

Rurally Screwed

The Bucolic Plague

Many plants hyper-accumulate specific nutrients. For example, comfrey accumulates calcium, magnesium, iron, and silica. Specific plants accumulate (fix) nitrogen (legumes). Others scavange phosphorous (dandelion or fennel). Whatever your nutrient deficiency, you can find a plant that accumulates that particular nutrient.

Table 6-2 (dynamic nutrient accumulators) from this book may be useful to you.

I would check out Jeavons thoughts on this. I think he was a pioneer in small scale nutritionally complete farming. I am not sure what the newest edition offers, but the edition I have breaks down nutrients per unit of space per crop.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Grow-More-Vegetables-Eighth/dp/160774189X

>They plan on moving to Hawaii to have year-round growing.

They really ought to read Four Season Harvest before making such a drastic move...

I'm going to read Teaming With Nutrients next; Korean Natural Farming is awesome if you're willing to put in the time, and you have the space for fermenting stuff.

It's not really a guide, but You Bet Your Garden is pretty great if you like podcasts.

I've heard a lot about a book called Gaia's Garden, but I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet. Despite the hippy dippy name, it's supposed to be quite firmly science-based.

You kind of have to take it one plant at a time, google "growing cherry tomatoes" or something like that.

Salad greens are super easy, chard is really reliable for me. You can probably open sow that now or soon, it (and most salad greens) actually prefer cooler weather.

Herbs can be easy or hard to start from seed, depends on the herb. I can't get lavender or rosemary to sprout for shit, but cilantro and basil pop up in a jiffy.

Bell peppers are pretty hard to grow down here in zone 7a, godspeed in 5b.

You're definitely wise to approach things as a skeptic. I was talking with a fellow permie once about all kinds of permie things, and I thought they seemed quite rational. Then, they started talking about energy healing. That was a "smile and nod" moment. I swear, we're mostly sane.

Teaming with Microbes and Teaming with Nutrients might be helpful books to check out. They don't directly address mineral accumulation, but it explains the processes through with accumulation occurs, if that makes sense. They're very thorough books that will make you wish you had paid more attention in Bio 101, but they're written in an engaging way.

This study is on bioaccumulation, though they're testing for heavy metals and not nutritional value. Maybe their methods are explained.

As far as comfrey goes, I know it dredges up minerals from the subsoil with its remarkably long roots. As the leaves die, they decompose on the ground and the minerals become available in the topsoil, which then makes those minerals available to other plants who don't have such deep roots.

Legumes, however, have bacteria colonies surrounding their roots that make nitrogen from the air available to the plant. When the plant dies, it decomposes and then the air-harvested nitrogen becomes available in the soil. Usually, we innoculate legume plantings with the bacteria. It occurs naturally in soil, but may not necessarily be present in every square foot of soil. So, better to be safe than sorry.

And there's a give-away - a choice of one of Eric's workshops,either a forest garden tasting workshop or a bioshelter workshop. Or a copy of Perennial Vegetables if you can't make it to a workshop.

https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0961079800

He's pulling those proportions and ingredients directly from this book: http://www.amazon.com/Square-Foot-Gardening-Second-Edition/dp/1591865484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374074184&sr=8-1&keywords=square+foot+gardening