Looking to connect with other Permaculture and nature loving farms surrounding the Palatka area. I have 2 acres in the town of Bardin off Songbird Rd. And finished the house, well etc. Ready for composting and turning sugar sand into soil. We are helping wildlife, building bat boxes, bees, etc. Want to connect, trade, start a group of netwrokers. I am an artist as well. Please write back, your new friend. Miketurnerart@gmail.com Facebook

Hi Michael! I'm over here in Ocklawaha (closer to moss bluff) and have 3 acres. Lots of edible landscraping planted about and some small livestock and using the manure an oak leaves to try an make sand into soil....  It's a slow process but I'm working at it!

Hi Annie, thabk you for replying and reaching outto this post. Your only an hour away. Let's keep in touch. Im really into collecting unusual plants so im sure i will have some to trade with you. I feel a lot of Permies want to connect especially newbies like myself. This is a great site and i praise the people who started Permies.com I have the same sugar sand and mostly oak leaves covering the ground. I did read that oak leaves let out an acid to stop other trees from growing under them? Im sure they will break down and be good compost. I was told by a beighbor not to let black oak grow because it has 10 times the acid in the leaves??? We plan to do a lot of projects on our farm even growing seaweed in a salt water pond. My father does this already in Miami but may move with us to help.☺ happy that you wrote.

Hi everyone. We moved here from NJ. Just learning about Permaculture. Have an acre and half and buying surrounding land.  Right now I am doing with what I have to create Hugel mounds, trying to connect with others, and learn as much as I can.  We are north of Palatka off of West River rd. I look forward to getting to know everyone.

Hi Brad, sounds like a good start. I am going to be bringing a lot of plants with me and will have a lot to give away and trade. I currently get a lot of Moringa from Fort Lauderdale from people who need help trimming them. Let's keep in touch and i will help any way i can especially with plants, cuttings' seeds etc.

Florida Permies zone 9a. People will find each other as they do tgrough the energy they emmit out into the universe. I found a list of surrounding cities of where my farm is for Putnam county. If i left any out please add it. I figure the google searches will bring us together slowly as it helped me find Permies in general. Here it goes. Bardin, Crescent city, East Orange, East Palatka, Palatka, Interlachen, Florahome, Fruit land, George Town, Hollister, Hungtington, Lake Como, Melrose, Orange Mills, Pomona Park, San Mateo, Sat Suma, Welaka. If i mispelled or left anyone one please post. If you are from any of these areas or even further please post so we can all connect. If you have suggestions on events or anywhere some of of new Permies can connect please post. There are about 10 other Permies that i have me that do not do online but would love to know about events so i am going to be there messennger. Thanks for reading. Cheers

Hey guys. I'm doing food forest stuffs at my folks 1 acre in Panama city. Not too close but I'll be around Gainesville early 2017 looking for permaculture work trade and exchange. We should all meet up some time together.

Welcome all. Welcome Tristan. Im happy this positive energy is bringing us together. There are more and more people im finding with land and want to get together as well. We just have to stay in touch till that day. Most are newbies like myself and just starting but there are some established Permies with big projects that we can all learn from. There was recently a Permaculture Convergence in Central Fl. Im sire it will pop up in google. There is a lot going on in Gainesville and i do plan to do a lot with my art there so let me know when you are there. Your definitely welcome to my place though we are in the very beginning stages with the property we have of 2 acres but for the most part it is moving along fast. Good to hear from you. My FB page is under miketurnerart@gmail.com

Hello, my name is Michael; my wife and I recently purchased 5 acres of land in rural Keystone Heights Florida. The property came with a septic tank, a well without a pump, and a power pole with out service. The front acre is mostly cleared while the other four are slightly wooded and slope down to a creek bed. Depending on which route you take it is a rough and bumpy 15 minutes drive to the closest paved road, it is hard to get a signal on my phone, and I love it.

A cabin shell is going to be placed on the land in January to make into a nice little home for us and our 5 kids. We plan on doing some market gardening and growing medicinal herbs using permaculture techniques.

I am looking for some like minded people that want to get into the offgrid, eco-village, communal lifestyle and build something great. So if you have yurt, tiny house, camper, rv, or just a tent and are looking to do something different with your life drop me a line.

Part of my plan is also to document this experience for a Youtube / webcast show. Two of my cousins and my brother in law make documentary films so I will have lots of help.

The property is about 50 minutes from Jacksonville, Gainesville, and St. Augustine and is located between Goldhead State Park and Belmore State Forest.

Hello Michael Hoffman, i have found that this great site here is great for finding lile minded people. Hope everyone continues to check in and make contack with each other. I would love to see your place sometime. I am all about building earth and eco housing and love that more and more communities are popping up. I got chosw my land accidentally as in my brother wanted to be close to Saint Augustine. I had Naples on my mind close to the Keys. Either way we arw happy with what we got though we are looking into other areas to invest in for future community since. Would love for all our neighbors to be networking and sharing Permaculture farms. Keystone Heights is apx 32 mins close. My place is ready living wise i just need to find a nearby job and move there. My wife and kids live there now and i have to keep my job in Fort Lauderdale till atleast the end of February. I will keep in touch for sure. If there are pics and videos let us know. I hope everyone says hello to each other. There are more and more of us out there. We just need to find each other. 😉

Hi Micheal(s)! I wanted to let you guys know that I will be at the Sacred Water Camp in Live Oak, a camp for protesting and raising awareness for the Sabal Trail Pipeline thats blazing a nasty natural gas threat to our precious Florida aquifer. I would love to come stay with one of you a day or few in mid-late Jan possibly and brainstorm, talk about ideas, help exchange plant cuttings/seeds, etc. Let me know if you want to meet up. I can catch rides to Gainesville occasionally when im back at camp. Ill be there Sunday. You guys should come out, too!

Tristan, sorry i didn't see this earlier. I have been concentrating on my new job at Ravine Gardens and have also just moved to Palatka. In the future when i grow some privacy hedges and a jungle edible forest i will have several yurts in the gardens for visitors. I have two trailers of family member besides my doublewide who are looking for land to buy in the area. I hope the protest went well. I have some frineds in town who went.

For some reason I have not seen the recent posts in the group hello Michael Hoffman and Tristan. Lets keep the momentum up and keep connecting We are in the process of having a second home built for people to live in and building a yoga ashram perma community.I'll post my site when its up and running.

Hello Tiny Homeowners in FL,

I am working on purchasing my first tiny home and I am looking for options of where to park it in Florida. I currently live in Tallahassee but am interested in moving. I work remotely from home and would be able to provide cash for rent and a portion of electricity and water. The home is beautiful, approx. 130 s.f., and looks like a tiny cabin. Please connect with me if you have space available or are involved in the tiny house movement in Florida.

Thank you!

Sarah

Hi Sarah i love the tiny homes idea. I may build some myself when the kids get older. Connect with others here from the olderand reachbout to them. I think you should tell Brad what your doing. I have learned there is a lit of abandonded property in Palatka and you should look into tax deed sales for any county. I would buy something that the impact fee was already paid for. I could have baught my 2 acres for $6,400. With a well and a septic but i didn't know about tax deed and baught it from a flipper for $10,000. Still we thought was an ok deal. There is cheap rural  land out there but you never know you may even find one cheap with a power pole and a fence as well. I had to change out my power pole because Putnam county changed the size requirement and i had to go bigger. There were a lot of surprises. If i have another change to buy another land i hope to find one surrounded by Permies. We are really spread out because we look for land blindly. Stick with your community. I would have been better off going to local Permaculture clubs first and fi ding out where they are. Many other people have the same idea. Alex Ojeida says there is a 1000 acre eco community project going on in Georgia. Check him out on my fb page miketurnerart@gmail.com let us all know what and where you are looking. Im alone out here but i have my family and trees. We may rent this out eventually and join abig community. Still we are going forward like we are planning to live here forever.

Hi Mike, we met today at the Bardin swap. Thanks for turning to this site. We're just getting started here with the perma culture aspect of our project. The ultimate goal for us would be a sustainable homestead that can be maintained with virtually zero grid power for the farm side. I look forward to talking, meeting, and learning more about how we can grow this little monster into a better sustainable system.
John & Robin

John and Robin, everyone say hello. It was nice to meet you. Say hello to otherr members and put a shout out of what you do and have. John and Robin have a lot of baby chicks, ducks, turkeys etc for sale. I met them at the farm swap in Bardin Palatka. Come by my place when you can especially if you vome to the next farm swap. I will give you some cuttings and seeds to help you get started. Most of us here are at our beginning stages as well and permies in general like to help each other and get connected and network. Go to my fb and i will connect you with some others.

Hi Michael, how are things coming along in Palatka? Recently I moved my family to Alachua County and am in the process of buying a 5 acre homestead just outside of the city, same hardiness zone as Palatka though - 9a. Just getting started with permaculture and would love to hear whats been working for you (and others in the thread) and whats not. Be glad to reciprocate anyway I can.
Best!
Chad

Hey Chad, nice to hear from you. Happy you are here. The deeper i get into Permaculture the more i realize it is more than just about sustainability and knowing your food source will eventually be organic free of chemicals etc. It is changing my life and the way i live it concerning my overall health. Also the more people that practice Permaculture and spread the word another person wakes up and becomes aware of how we have taken this planet for granted and more people become true environmentaly concerned. Not to sound spacey. I have had a recent injury that has landed me a butt load of pain in the low back, right leg, hip, pinched nerves and a lot of pain and painful rehabbing and trying to hols up my job through it as well as a park ranger. I have totally changed my diet to Paleo and try to learn all i can about any health remedy as well as exercises, stretching etc. I felt the need to help others who tell me about their illness like this lady in a grocery store who walked away when i pointed at the bread in her cart after she asked about my leg and told me about her joint ligament issues. They don't want to know. So i realize i really want to surround myself with like minded people. So here we are finding each other. This is not why i started this thread. I was not hurt when i started it. You should write to anyone in the group and say hello. I don't know if they check it often. I get alerts so i respond but i hope everyone writes to each other. I hope people will respond to anyones post. I only started it but it's for everyone so feel free. Okay so we are in the beginning stages still with a lot going on. We have young chicks and ducks not old enough to lay eggs. We have several gardens going on with a lot of your basic greens. I learned that leafy greens will do well in sugar sand if you water them with compost tea. I have a lot of other plants like, Okinawa Spinach really taking off, Sissou spinach, jewels of Opar are fun (eat one leaf a day only?) mexican oregano, cuban oregano, a lot of wild blue berries everywhere already here, muskadines already here, we planted black berry, raspberry, sherbert berry trees 1' tall, next month my brother brings mt Moringa trees from Fort Lauderdale and i will let you know how they adapt. I am told they do well in sugar sand but im not sure of the ones from down south will acclimate. I want to connect with other farms and start collecting anything i can get my hands on. Right now im focusing on my condition and my wife is doing most of the farming. We have come a long way and i hope by next year we will have bees. We are going to try a lot of different techniques including raised garden because i think it will tale us a long time before we can turn the top layer of this sugar sand into soil. It's a big issue here which is why a lot of people give up. There is so much land around us as in acres of cleared areas with just a house and no gardens. They may get inspired? I have other plants but they are in pots so i didn't mention them because im not sure how they will do yet. I have to get some mexican sunflower for chop and drop nitrogen fixer soil build up and whatever else i can grow in that since. Let us know how you do. Put a shout out if you need to know local resources. Im still looking. I would be further along but im slow these days. Oh! Yeah getting logs ready for mushrooms. Never did it before but youtube is a great source. Cheers!

Thanks for your input Michael. I especially like the idea of compost tea, hadn't given it much thought previously. Soil seems to be the biggest challenge in our area and I want to avoid throwing a bunch of money at it as much as possible. Will definitely let you know things go and hope you feeling better/back on your feet soon. If your ever over this way let me know, we can grab coffee or something. Best!

Thank you Chad, doing all i can. I don't do coffee because i can't though i have loved it before. I drink bone broth in the mornings now anf occasionally lemon with water. But i do welcome the invitation and would love to visit some time. What type of trees are growing there? We are loaded with oaks and had to cut some down for various reasons. Therefore we have lots of oak leaves. They are hard to break down and very acidic adding to acidic soil. If you plan to grow blue berries rake some of the leaves that way. Rake the others in a compost pile. Chop some down if you have a forest and use some for raised log beds and the 4" to 6" ones for future mushroom logs. I loved our Oaks and it's what sold us on this place. Little did i know that i would end up changing the landscape by having to take some out. I am weeding all of them under 7" width. We have a lot of really big ones. I plan to grow fruit trees and whatever in their place next to the stumps. Im thinking a few avocado cold hardy variety and at least two loquat. I need other leaves to drop for compost. The soil is tricky here. It's not soil, it's sand but it mixes well with soil. I saw a video of a guy in Cuba using a machine that did great chop and drop with tall grasses. I hear Millett is used for this. People say to dump layers of mulch but i think it would take years to decompose. Anything is better than pure sand. Cardboard is good to lay down to hold moisture i read but have not tried it yet. Do you know of Permaculture jax over in Jacksonville?  scroll down in Permies to Heart village to see their video or google it. They are in central. Also check Maya Papaya farm. Black Hog farm. And talk to other members on this thread. Permies really want to help each other.

Plants and seeds trade meet up. Does anyone want to help organize a plant trade meet up? Or does anyone know of one we can join in on in around central Fl?

Trade plants and seeds, weeds, cuttings on a personal exchange.

   If you come to my farm it is open to all of you. Anyone that shows up empty handed will leave with some plants and im sure you would have shared your knowledge and it would be worth meeting you. If anyone wants to trade any plants with me personally, here is a list of what i have. I will trade for anything i don't have. I will even take or especially take edible or medicinal weeds or nitrogen fixers, etc. even if you just dug them up and put them in a bag but let me know because i may already have too much of it.
     My current list of plants i have most availability of is, Malabar Spinach ( in pot and as seeds), Sissou Spinach (cuttings and in pots) Okinawa Spinach (cuttings/pots) Magnolia fig (pots) Moringa Oleifere (pots) Jack Bean (a few seeds) Pigeon Pea, (seeds, pots) Jamaican Sorrel (pots) like the cranberry hibuscus but a way bigger pod and looks like a different plant. South Ameeican bean? (Seeslings) i picked from a latin gardener and could not understand the exact name but that it's a bean and edible from a vine. Katuk (pots) Papaya (seeds and seedlings) variety unknown but it may be the red? Ginger, (dig and seperate) Probably leaving some plants out. These are the ones i have lots of for now.

Chick weed, does anyone have any chick weed?

     I need more greens to feed my chickens. They love the Spanish needle. I learned all i can about ChickChickweed on "Eat the Weeds with Dean Green" (taking a tour with him soon possibly) but can't find it in the wild yet. Im really into identifying wild edible plants and plan to eventually have every wild edible or useful weed growing in a weed garden. Of course i can't call them weeds any longer. Wild edibles? I am also on the hunt for the fruiting passion vine that has escaped cultivation here in central Fl. I know of a location i heard of where there is plenty but have not gone yet. If you pm me, i will tell you.

Oak leaves and composting experiment!

    I have been asked by too many people what they can do with Oak Leaves because they take so long to break down. The main question is (Do Oak leaves have too much acid to use in compast?) I hope someone can answer this question. I do know that Oak leaves put out a chemical to eliminate other trees from growing under them yet i always see hundreds of oak seedlings growing.
  So i am doing some experiments. I took some recycled bags that had soil in them and filled the bags with raked up Oak leaves only then i filled the bags with water. The bags probably had tiny holes in it anyways. Well a few months later i emptied those bags and the leaves were in a dried clump but you could barely tell that it was mostly leaves. It was very light but the clump was sturdy and i had to chop it up with a shovel. Im thinking that fungus/mycelium? Got inside? I could have kicked it around like a ball. Experiment #2 I raked the leaves up into huge and small piles in the shade and it has been raining a lot. The leaves broke down a lot in the middle and it looks like some nice, rich brown compost almost broke down to soil. I am going ahead and mixing this into my soil and filling the bottom of my pots with it. Experiment # 3 was by accident. I found a plastic tray in the ground filled with oak leaves and must of been there for years. The leaves on top were as they are when they fall but the further i dug tge blacker the leaves were till eventually i down to black muck/compost brokwb down really well. I think the piles were the best and i think the trick is to keep them moist. I heard people cover with a black plastic but thats not good as it kills the good bacteria. I read a thread of someone looking for a way to shred the leaves to add to compost and wonder if that's a waste of time and money though im sure it would help. Anyone know about Oak leaves? I need to plant other trees but wont get rid of my big Oaks, just the scragly ones in between.

Hi Michael! I been putting leaves in wire hoops sitting on pieces of tin. It can take a long time to fill them as they compact down a foot or more every month. I filled one in May, 4' tall, and it has compacted down to about 14" with all the rain. Been living here with predominantly oak leaves for 4 years now and a few observations are... It takes 2 years to make excellent brown compost from oak leaves in the baskets...(so far... We had drought for so long, fortunately, that has passed for now) I been putting stuff in to speed it along; grass clippings, guts, feathers, manure, rinse water from scalding or boiling things like taters, pasta, the pee bucket, old eggs,  any small critters that expire like toads, snakes, rats, chicken, etc... (i have a couple pig an goat heads in one basket thats been sitting 2 years, I'll pull that one up this fall n see how it looks...)At the 1 year point I sometimes pull up the hoop, turn it over next to the pile and pitch fork the contents back in... Then leave it alone for another year. When I was younger I did that every few months. The only way I've found to get them broke down in a few months is to put them in the drive way where I drive over them about 6-10 times a week... That worked fairly well except for the deluge rains washing the stuff down the driveway... And of course, the weed seed thrives in that method also... It really takes a lot of leaves to make a little soil... And sometimes there will just be pockets of brown mulch, and pockets of leaves not broke down at all... Anyhow, I pulled one up last spring, moved all the mix to a raised bed, added about 1/3 sand/dirt to the mix an planted about 50 sweet potatoes slips... About 5 died right away, rest are doing well... A neighbor has given me a chipper/shredder to use and it works good except that it's a finicky machine and I can only pull the rope so many times to start it... Needs man power I don't have at the moment... Plus... It's noisy an uses resources I'd rather not use. So I keep experimenting... So for me, the mix (95+% oak leaves) that comes out after 18-24 months, grows things very well...!

Hi Annie, great information. Im happy you replied to this subject because you are the main inspiration for me to have done these expeeiments. That and the fact that i have so many oak leaves to pile up and this subject keeps popping up on other threads both new and old. Your information is golden and will help anyone in this situation like me who has 90% oak leaves. I take out all black oak seedlings as they pop up because i was told they have way more acid than any other oaks. There are many in my neighbors furthers down the road. Sand Pines seem to fall on their own. Had 3 so far in a year and they were huge. So back to Oak leaves, it's like you said (Time is the true answer). I definitely want to grow more plants for chop and drop to add to the pile. I wondered what else can be composted. I never thought of pasta but now i know. I believe David the Good wrote a book called (Compost Everything) and i wondered what does it mean by everything? I have been too strick with only using veges that went bad and egg shells. I thought i had wasted the compost by just throwing that stuff in there and not getting around to adding any dry leaves or other stuff. Im sure i would have more compost if i did add lots of other stuff but i need to grow it first. I only have a few mexican sunflower but its a start and i was thinking of planting some loquat since they grow so well and produce a lot of good size leaves that break down easily. I did well with avocado leaves when in Fort LauderdaleNeighbors Neighbors with trees hanging over the fence but that was a rental and rentals are a setback. So i am feeling better with my lower back and getting back in the garden and looking for some plabts that grow fast and produce fast compost and of course the recommended nitrogen fixer plants. I had tindora growing like crazy in Fort Lauderdale but my neighbors yards were getting taken over. Not a good thing, only one noticed and asked where it came from and what it was. Basically it was already there. Not sure i want a plant i cant control. I thought of planting plants like this in two barrels with a clothes line in between them and never let them fruit or hit the ground. What are your thoughts? Anyone growing Tindora? Scarlet Gourd? Any other recomendations? Besides Oak leaces? Thanks for your reply and information Annie.

Papaya trees and Oak leaf compost pile.  Hello everyone,  it's been a while since I have been on here.  I just wanted to tell everyone that I threw a lot of Papaya seeds on my Oak leaf compost pile some times ago,  months ago? They are growing now, fast and strong.  I am pretty sure I buried them a few times with more and more leaves but not sure.  Anyways they are growing amazing so these Oak leaves have come in handy. I am also wondering if the compost will help keep their roots warm during the winter.  I know I will have to cut the tops of the trees off an cover them, maybe even cover the wound with wax? Just wanted to update.  My pigeon trees are like 8' tall and they seem to be OK with the sugar sand so that's another crop doing well, no beans as of yet.  

Michael Hoffman,  hey Michael,  how is your community of Permies going? Did you get some work traders to help out? How is your soil? I am still trying to find out what anyone is growing as a cover crop,  to build up their soil in this area.  Hope you are well.  

Hi Michael! My papaya are growing well, I have one 3 year old that froze almost all the way to the root last winter, it tried to send a dozen shoots out in the spring and I culled to just two. They have green fruits on them now and should ripen if I'm lucky. Have a few others I had in pots I brought inside for the freezing nights an planted out in May or June, one has fist size papayas on it. The record rains have been a mixed blessing, some things are doing real well... The cattley guava is ripening now and good, sweet fruit, and other things are suffering... The persimmons are swelling getting soft and falling still green. I keep approximate track of rainfall and from May-through July we had 30"... And about 47" this year through July.... At my place...  The oak leaf bins have really 'worked' fast with all the rain... I really didn't even get a chance to fill them before the rains came an made moving leaves more hassle than its worth... But I do have the trunk of a large oak tree I had cut down a couple years ago thats turned to a nice crumbly, spongy nature now with mushroom an fungus growing on the pieces I plan to put into my fall planting beds... I keep trying... Different things. Like the yard long beans, I just planted a few seeds around each of the 2 apple trees that haven't done much yet, but they produced enough green beans for me to have a few servings of them a week for past 5-6 weeks... They're dwindling now but that's something I might plant more of next summer...

Annie,  sounds great! I'm happy to know your garden is doing well.  It is a lot of work.  I am at the point where I can start visiting other farms so if the offer still stands I would like to see your place sometime.  I will look through my seeds to see what I have because honestly it had been a year since I looked at them.  

Community garden project.  Hello everyone,  I want to tell you about my new project at the old Palatka water works facility.  It was abandoned for years but long ago volunteers took it over and made part of it into a community all organic garden. I have a plot there with a great bunch or people.  It's next to Ravine gardens in Palatka,  FL.   They give tours of the historic facility and of the tortoise and box turtle,  bat habitat and they have bees that they care for naturally. They are also looking for volunteers and more gardeners.  They are a fb page called community organic garden. If anyone is interested you can call me.  (954) 826-5398 Mike

ISO,  eco-village. Does anyone know of a Permaculture ecovillage within an hour at most from Palatka? It would have to welcome children which I will have every other weekend.  I would love to rent a cabin. My goal is to move from the cabin into an MCI bus conversion that I plan to buy in the next few months. I want my kids to learn Permaculture and community and have other kids to play with and other parents who teach an inspire them so they can know what a toxic free environment is like.  Also I want to be around knowledgeable permies so I can learn the things I don't know and teach what I do know.  

Hi there,

On Facebook there is Permie group that I was a part of  "Ocala Permaculture"     That may be a good place for you to meet.

I am in Summerfield Florida, and I do  a bit of everything from hydroponics to korean natural farming to aquaponics.

Being where you are located, I highly suggest you check out this shop as they have built with cob and are heavy into permaculture ->

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM5p9ZY7wUQ

Also on facebook there is a group called "Permaculture Florida"    that has lots of connections,    I have stopped using facebook and I have moved over to MeWe myself.

Cheers

Mark Hale,  thank younger the information.  I will check that out.  I'd like to know what traditional Korean gardening is.  Love the idea of any experimental gardening as well.  

Michael Turner wrote:Mark Hale,  thank younger the information.  I will check that out.  I'd like to know what traditional Korean gardening is.  Love the idea of any experimental gardening as well.  

v


Sure thing Michael,

The general idea of Korean Natural farming is to do composing using composting without air, anaerobic composting.    Be warned, this stinks like a paper mill or a skunk, but the advantage I have found is you can generate fertilizer for free, that the plants adore.    

Here are my links to this method I have collected ->

https://www.pinterest.com/mart85yahoocom/korean-natural-farming-bokashi/?eq=korean&etslf=4254

On a side note, if you use this method be 100% sure you wash your veggies before you eat them as it can breed some very nasty bacteria, but if you take good precautions it can produce bountiful results.

Mart

Mart Hale,  thank you.  I will check it out.  I like to study all kinds of soil producing methods considering the fact that my area is mostly sugar sand and the soil must be created.

I am in the process of buying some land in SouthWest Florida (Ft Myers).
So land someone could farm for a bit, and cool projects that could be done.

Anyone nearby that I could network with

S. Benji,  welcome,  I do know there is a permaculture farm in Fort Myers or close called Echo farms. Look them up on You Tube. They do a tour and sale plants cheap from what I hear.  If you ever make it to Palatka I would give you some of my plants free.