HI, I'M ALISON

I'm an aspiring agronomist and lifelong educator. Ironically, I currently work in cybersecurity sales, but I also spend time improving my connection to the land and building communities of "good people".

This is a site where...

  • You learn wilderness survival skills
  • We teach the essentials of artisan crafts
  • Every member of the community brings their best self to the table
  • Altruism and ethical behavior earn you community respect
  • You can connect to like-minded humans
  • We build awesome things together
  • Creative outbursts are welcome

    • BLOG

    Blog coming soon!

    Topics to cover include:

  • How To Grow Worms
  • How Fishing Impacts Climate Change

    • CONTACT ME

    646 285 4586

    agronomate@gmail.com

    LinkedIn

    ENROLL

    Options to enroll in classes coming soon.

    THE FUTURE

    I look forward to building up this community into a thriving hub of entrepreneurs and instigators of change. At the end of the day, I think most of us don't just want to prosper individually, we want to know how to be good global citizens, and we have no idea where to start. Hopefully, together, we can find our way.

    I'm working on:

  • This site
  • A game called Galewood

    • RESOURCES

    I look forward to amassing a set of resources that enable this community to thrive, investigating new topics and materials.

    Resources to Include:

    Notes/Diagrams I create based on my experiences or based on books or documentaries I've found helpful

    Freely distributed resources I amass from online

    Recommended Apps

    Recommended Reading

    Recommended Videos/Channels

    AGRONOMY

    Ag - ron - o - my

    Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants in agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, recreation, and land restoration. Agronomy has come to encompass work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. - Wikipedia

    Ag - ron - o - mate [sic, I made it up]

    1) Your best friend who is super into agronomy (just kidding)

    2) The action of creating a functional agronomy-related process that solves a human problem

    e.g. "I agronomated methane explosions at a nearby landfill by starting a community compost heap"

    Topics To Cover

    Agronomy is a wide-ranging field and includes a lot of incredibly cutting-edge and specific knowledge. Topics I would like to cover include:

    NOTE: You can find "farming" and "food" sections under the General Topics on the left, but these will not cover topics such as how to turn plants into fuel or fiber. That would be under Materials Processing, nicknamed "PROCESSING".

    CONSTRUCTION

    Construction encompasses many subtopics, including everything from building a chicken coop to building a 3 bedroom home or industrial greenhouse. On this site, construction will mostly refer to small projects (such as chicken coops) that can be completed over a single weekend. This is primarily because the focus of this site is to get people generally acquainted with broad ideas about how to do things, should they need to do them in a pinch. In a world with sufficient stability to build a 3 bedroom home, which will not be destroyed rapidly by other humans at war or by prevalent natural disasters, it is assumed that you will have a method of attaining work in another specialty and bartering your work, money, or artisan goods for the service of having your home built.

    FARMING

    Whether you've never planted a seed or you're a seasoned farmer, there's always something thrilling about starting a garden. Farming is a deep topic, but as described in the section on "agronomy", in this section farming will only cover the bare minimum relating to the process of growing your own food/plants in order to survive.

    To start, we should discuss vegetables. Of course there are plenty of medicinal plants including certain flowers and herbs that are also useful, but for now vegetables will do us some good.

    I get most of my seeds here: http://www.mcssl.com/store/calebwarnock

    BEANS

    There are many species of beans that you can easily grow, but the one I am starting with is called tepary beans. "First grown in the Southwest during ancient times, tepary beans (Phaseolus acutifolius) mature quickly and are tolerant of the low desert heat, drought and alkaline soils. They are among the most drought and heat tolerant crops in the world. Tepary beans are high in protein and contain soluble fiber helpful in controlling cholesterol and diabetes. Generally white tepary beans have a slightly sweet flavor and brown tepary beans have an earthy flavor. Tepary beans can be used in place of any standard dried bean. Soak the dried beans before cooking. They are best planted with the mid-summer monsoon rains characteristic of the Southwest, unless otherwise stated. They generally do not tolerate wet conditions and clay soils. Teparies are most productive with some drought stress as they mature. They generally do not require support, though many will climb if given the chance."

    Source: https://www.nativeseeds.org/collections/tepary-beans

    Brown Tepary Beans

    White Tepary Beans

    Mixed (Red) Tepary Beans

    FOOD

    This is another incredibly broad topic to discuss. For my purposes, Food will concern only topics related to "what to do with harvested or purchased food items" (e.g. cooking or preserving them), rather than the process that leads to having the food available for harvest, which I instead put under Farming.

    I also refer to the work of Nicole Apelian and leverage her resources regarding foraging and preserving food, as well as making tinctures which is described in the APOTHECARY section.

    MATERIALS PROCESSING

    I aspire to learn more about how to turn weeds into paper; according to my PictureThis plant identification app, one of the common weeds behind my house was used to make paper long ago. It's called flatsedge, and can be used similarly to other weeds to make a papyrus-like product, as papyrus is also a sedge.

    In my research, I've learned that papyrus is again being planted and propagated throughout East and Central Africa, but that "the modern technique of papyrus production used in Egypt for the tourist trade was developed in 1962 by the Egyptian engineer Hassan Ragab using plants that had been reintroduced into Egypt in 1872 from France. Both Sicily and Egypt have centres of limited papyrus production."

    Papyrus itself is used to make baskets, hats, fish traps, trays or winnowing mats, floor mats, roofs, ceilings, rope and fences. (Wikipedia) Theoretically, we should be able to use other sedges to make similar items, which I look forward to experimenting with once I've propagated some of my own sedge from the garden.

    Flatsedge

    Papyrus Blooms

    Butchering

    Coming Soon!

    Fire

    Coming Soon!

    Foraging

    Coming Soon!

    Hunting

    Coming Soon!

    Stranded

    Coming Soon!

    Water

    Coming Soon!

    Canning

    I bought access to a super helpful course on canning hosted by Theresa with Living Homegrown and would highly recommend you go check it out if your main concern about canning is not making anyone sick. She does a phenomenal job of making it simple and appealing.

    Nutbutters

    Coming Soon!

    Preservation

    To be clear, this section covers preserving food, not yourself. Although probably one will lead to the other.

    I hope to try my first pemmican at an upcoming Gray Bearded Green Beret (GB2) course.

    Tofu

    Tofu is tasty!

    Yogurt

    Gogurt is not real yogurt. Nor is frozen yogurt.

    Apothecary

    Killed Romeo and Juliet

    By Hand

    Not by machine! There are many reasons to go more primitive with your endeavors, but the top reason for me is that I want to cause the least possible distruption to nature and wildlife. Even just using lawnmowers can have an incredibly harmful impact on birds and wildlife in the area, let alone the tons of other tools we use that roar and screech. My new rule of thumb on my own land will be: if I wish I had headphones when I use it, I won't use it at all.

    Ecology

    Coming Soon!

    Stickshift

    Coming Soon!

    Woodworking

    Coming Soon!

    Ham

    I do not like green eggs and ham, Sam I am.

    Power

    Power! Unlimited Power! Rise Darth Vader.

    Solar

    Solaris is the scientific name for the sun.