For general knowledge on all types of agriculture, the country wisdom and know how collection are recommended.

[BiotechFarmer's] recommendation, if you are brand new to gardening/farming at all, is to choose 5 universal crops that are highly forgiving.

Radishes, rye, collards, pole beans, and sweet potatoes.

Each one will teach you a specific skill that is useful for all other crops down the road

Radishes - how to watch water level and tilth in the soil. Rye - how to distinguish between known weeds and crops that look similar Collards - how to effectively thin seedlings, grow long standing crops, and harvest without destroying the plant. Pole beans - how to establish a continously harvest feild with structures to support heavy producers Sweet potatoes- how to select between different growth habits, propagate crops from living stock, harvest underground root crops, and proper curing/storage to prevent rot.

To talk about water for a second. Water is one of the 3 essential factors to farming as it facilitates life, but you can not allow water to stay stagnant whether in a pond or the soil as it will replace air leading to a death enviroment. The way water works in the soil is that it does not pool, but instead flows through the soil profile and deposited a thin film around the soil particles it can bind to. This is why sand drains so quickly, but clay holds onto water never letting it dry out. Carbon, especially charcoal, is great for this application because it is just large enough to not bind up water molecules, but also small enough to hold onto water and air. So what does this mean for soil, and further down the plant life? You will want a soil profile that drains really well, intermixed with high carbon materials that will hold the water in suspension.

You can achieve this in 2 ways, surface soil and sub soil. With surface soil, you add compost, manure, mulch, hay, and other organic mater that piles up on the surface of the soil and breaks down gradually. This is important for soil because it can hold water and air at the surface level roots, and also sheild the rest of the soil from the sun when not covered by plant foliage. The down side is that this is a temporary measure as bacterial decomposition will quickly consume the top dressing in as little as 3 months, requiring frequent addition throughout the growing season. Subsoil on the other hand is much more stable. This can be achieved 2 ways, soil turning or deep roots. Soil turning is as it sounds, where you take the surface material and turn it under the soil to a depth of 24 inches (60cm). This will take surface carbon, whether mixed with soil or not, and buried it to where oxygen will not be present. I do not like this except for starting out beds because you will destroy the soil you are trying to cultivate and set back the fungal network back years. The second choice then is to use long tap root crops specifically to push down into the subsoil, then die off and let the roots to rot. This takes more time but has multiple advantages. 1 you do not disturb the soil structure, 2 you are feeding the biologics during the plant growth, and 3 you leave open air channels that rainfall and air can infiltrate the soil during the next season.

Other than fixing the soil structure, you should also build water retaining structures to hold water long term and allow it to slowly seep into the soil profile. Swales, berms, and key line ponds are perfect for this. A swale is a section of soil that is dug out facing up a hill, and the soil is place on the downward side. This will allow water rolling down hill to be caught and fed into the soil profile. Berms are similar but require extra soil and run perpendicular to water flow, usually from a river, in order to divert some water resources to a land area. Can be combined with a channel or other water way constructions to enhance the effect further, but are usually used to help control both drought and flood conditions. The last one are key line ponds. A keyline is an area of water flow on a mountain that is purposely created to pull torent rainfall away from productive regions and helps prevent landslide. The keyline pond is an addition to the keyline feature that helps slow down the flow in the valley construction, but also holds a lot more water that can later be pumped back up to feed the land. Final point I would like to make. Tier 3 and 4 soil life also create water channels in excess compared to what plants can do. These are earthworms, nightcrawlers, dung beetles, moles, voles, and some species of snakes. Do not kill these creatures please, if you want to you can deter them from your productive gardens and push them toward brush rows.

5 earth healing projects around the world.
https://youtu.be/Tpozw1CAxmU

3 of them were a direct cause of people taking ownership over their land resources, or creating a free market solution. The other 2 were government sponsored. However with how massive these projects are, it gives the illusion that you need a lot of people to reclaim the land when you really just need the proper information and political climate to do it. We could easily restore the entire continent of the US, but the department of agriculture and EPA have such strict regulations on any permanent land structure, water structure, or environmental preserve that it is nearly impossible to do anything.

All mushroom spawn will not grow under 45°F.
You want to maintain 60-75°F and 80% humidity to grow successful stands. As for specific species, it really depends on your growth set up. Indoors or greenhouse will allow you to produce anything. Outside is highly dependent on your climate, up to the amount of sunlight or shaded areas of the area or if there is wind at specific times of year.

https://grocycle.com/easiest-mushrooms-to-grow/
The easiest mushrooms to grow are:

• Oyster mushrooms
• Shiitake mushrooms
• Wine cap mushrooms
• Pioppino mushrooms
• Lion’s mane mushrooms

2 channels dedicated to mushroom cultivation.
https://youtube.com/c/NorthSpore
https://youtube.com/c/PhillyGoldenTeacher

The first step is to make sure you have the plant species you want to save. During the growing season, take out and eat any of the less than healthy plants, or ones that are underperforming. once they go to seed, catch the seed heads in a mesh bag so they do not blow away. Depending on the seed you can easily select the healthiest ones with size and weight, how ever for the smallest seeds you have to constantly sift using either extra fine screen or the toss and blow method. The toss and blow is where you lightly toss the seeds off the the plate you are sifting in front of a fan on the lowest possible settings. The heavier the seed, the better quality and easier to store. Flat, empty seeds should be thrown away or used as sprouts.

This is not a book, it is more of a reference material because it is incredibly packed with knowledge: https://www.abebooks.com/Country-Wisdom-Know-How-Editors-Storey-Publishings/31118000513/bd

Farmers’ Almanac Daily Planner https://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening

Thanks to BiotechFarmer for his contribution to this section.