Salutations from Sonoma

Hey everyone, I'm 28, he/him, and partially "clicked" from Sonoma County, California. Living in the redwoods, building hugulkulturs, composting, reusing, using solar solutions (such as a cooker or a good ol fashioned clothesline), and so on. Anyone else in the area?

Hi there, I want to move to Sonoma County or the surrounding area.  I have my permaculture design certification and would like a place to grow food and tend the land with a few animals.  I am looking into purchasing a tiny house but don’t know of a place to put it long term.  Any thoughts? Thanks!

Unfortunately the tiny house laws in Sonoma are pretty lame. Basically you have to be a caregiver, or potentially an agricultural worker but then you'd have to work for that farm. Or you do a factory made home permanently built and go through the standard permit process, with both permits and all but the worst land being super expensive. The rest of the bay area is just as expensive or moreso. Your best bet might be Mendocino county but your job opportunities are going to be a lot more limited. Real bad water situation up there too (as with the rest of California).

Or you can go under the table with a landowner, especially in the more rural Cazadero area, but that's risky ofc, and not necessarily easy to find. Wish I had better advice but it's a real expensive place.

Hi from Mendocino County :)

If you're in redwood forest, I recommend trying to grow strawberries.  They seem to love it here.  I've transplanted a lot during winter to random places, and many of them spread or at least survive on their own with no specific care aside from maybe being watered once during the summer.  If you have the wild "alpine" strawberry growing around you, that's a clue that it's good strawberry habitat.

Thanks for the advice.  Yes, all the properties I have seen are either way out of my price range or they are uninhabitable and would cost a fortune to even gain access.  Ideally I would like to find someone with property and do a work trade as the land caretaker (or whatever misc. jobs that need to be done).  Whether that be a farm, campsite, or animal rehab.  I want to be able to put my permaculture skills to good use (growing food, rainwater harvest, composting, building soil health, etc.)  I'm having a hard time finding like-minded people in my current area so I figured moving to what seems to be the permaculture capital of the US would be a start.  Of course that also happens to be one of the most expensive places in the country!

Ha, yeah it's 'spensive. Didn't think of it as the permaculture capital but I suppose it is at least in the top 10 compared to so much of the US. Even so, you probably got maybe 10-25% of the population that is even remotely practicing permaculture (although much more then that would be sympathetic to the cause). But yeah, hope you can find someone to work with. Or make it work with where you're from.

I'm growing strawberries on a hugel, and got the wild strawbs too (not very productive without water though.) As far as fruit goes, I have a ton of huckleberries in comparison. Not so easy to harvest but worth it when I'm up for it.

I'm in Marin, formerly from Sonoma and Mendocino. Unfortunately the costs of property around here have kept us from being about to do much in the way of gardening / permaculture (we live in an apartment at the moment). I've been doing a bit on a spare patch of soil where I work, but if I move on from that job I'll lose access, which sucks.