Morgan Morrigan wrote:I would go all old-timer on you, and tell you to spend the first year "observing" and studying the "edges" of the area you are in.
Start gorilla gardening at your school, and try building some vertical gardens with recycled bits. this will bring together a core of like minded folks, and help keep you tracking forward.
Order a fungi perfecti mushroom bag kit, and see if you enjoy that.
build a worm bin to keep next to the cafeteria door.
get the biology dept to study local soil fungi and bacteria in the leaf litter in different edges around town, and see if any make a big difference to local weed growth.
learn how to harvest and reproduce lichens, and try and grow them on rocks around campus. Turns out they are doing a lot more than we thought, and there is a large group of lichenologists in cali.
We are finding using rocks as surface mulches are working much better than we would think, and if we could find an easy way to get lichens started on them, we might be able to cut out nearly all fertilizers.
study seawater as a fertilizer. try evaporating out different strengths, and finding a output for the chlorides in industry
S Bengi wrote:It might be hard to buy even 1 acre of land in Cali, But if you have the money please do buy it.
If you you dont have the money see if you can lease it. It might only cost a grand or so for a year.
With that you can practice with swales/etc. try out mix vegetable from seed (10/lbs) and a few cheap berries.
You can also buy fruit tree seedlings for cheap, as low as $2/plant vs $30.
But they will not be named cultivars so make sure that the plant normally have sweet fruits/nut even if "wild".
Each course in college cost $2500 in fees+books, so go ahead and spend that much for you permaculture "lab class".