Cosmic Bob's Plan for Your Life

as revealed to Douglas Bullock

As you know, there are a lot of people these days wanting to make a positive change here on earth, you are probably one of them yourself, the big question is... What to do?

Are you thinking about a green eco-ag program at one of those liberal arts Universities? Are you planning on designing your own degree or do you want University credit for independent study?

Do you think/believe that your professors and/or counselors are telling you the truth? Does someone living in a 3000sq.ft. golden medallion home (total electric), and driving a S.U.V. to work to teach about sustainability, seem a little far-fetched?

Are you ready to blow school off all together or are you finishing it and are a bit disillusioned about what to do next? If you can identify with any of these, then Cosmic Bob's Plan may be what you're looking for!

Cosmic Bob's plan will help you develop your own ideas about sustainable agriculture and right livelihood and gain a better understanding of whole systems, biology and life's process.

Be a first choice valuable intern on the farm you want! Make better decisions, be prepared if you plan to get your own land or join a community. O.K. take a dip breath, here is the plan...

Year one

Start and maintain your own vegetable garden (small) annuals and biennials, veggies, flowers and fruit. This can be in your own back yard or at an established community garden area or where ever. (Just make sure to do it your self! No hard responsibility or decision). Be sure to save some seed of your favorites along the way.

Continue the garden and add some perennials: strawberries, asparagus, herbs, wing beans, chayote etc. more in tropics. Learn to build a trellis and save some seed.

Continue the garden and add woody perennials Brambles, rabies, passion fruit, banana, papaya and some medicinal herbs and plant a few fruit trees and save some more seed.

Continue the garden and add some nursery stock. Learn to propagate woody perennials so you could expend or duplicate your garden.

These years may be accelerated and or condensed and certainly more shrubs and trees should be planted if at all possible. If planted early they will be fruiting in the last two years.

Concurrently to all this:

• Attend a good Permaculture course.
• Work (get a job) with a trade's man carpentry, electrical, plumbing, concrete/ masonry or fencing. For at least 3 months. Longer if you want! It will be to your advantage to do more than one of those.
• Also work with a landscaper, nursery or seed co. For awhile -> 3 months.
• Also attend a community collage, polytechnic or night school and take a course in small engine repair and or auto mechanic. If you're keen on it welding and mech. Drawing would also be very useful.
• Intern on a permaculture farm for an entire growing season. While there work with wild and domestic animals. For instance build a "chicken tractor", " rabbit tractor", raise poultry or rabbits etc. from new born/hatched. Build a beehive work with bees. Build a "hutch" or coop. Build bat boxes or birdhouses or develop reptile amphibian habitat.
• Produce a "value added" product from something you grew or wild crafted: tinctures, salves, dried fruit, jam, baskets, extracts, soap, etc.
• Develop a spekes Index for part of your town (at least a few square blocks). Locate (map) and catalog all trees and major shrubs.
• Document every project with text and photos, including comments what you did? Why? What worked? What didn't how will you improve it next time?
• Read voraciously from this book list; get to know older gardeners in your area.

The book list

1. Intro to Permaculture -Mollison
2. Permaculture Designer's Manual -Mollison
3. Tree Crops -J. Russell Smith
4. Natural Way of Farming -Manasoba Fukuoka
5. Water for Every Farm -P.A. Yemans
6. The Bio-gardener's Bible -Lee Flyer
7. Super Nutrition Gardening -William S. Peavy
8. Secrets to a Great Soil -Elizabeth Stell
9. Test Your Soil with Plants -John Beeby
10. Seed to Seed -Suzanne Ashworth
11. Garden Seed Inventory -Seed Savers Exchange
12. The New Seed Starters Handbook -Nancy Bubel
13. Organic Gardening -Crow & Elizabeth Miller
14. The Dirt Doctors Guide to Organic Gardening -J. Howard Garrett
15. How to Grow Vegetables & Fruits by the Organic Method -J. I. Rodale
16. Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening -J. I. Rodale
17. Fruit, Berry & Nut Inventory -Seed Savers Exchange
18. How to Grow More Vegetables -John Jeavons
19. The Backyard Orchards -Stella Otto
20. The Backyard Berry Book -Stella Otto
21. NAFEX Handbook & Back Issues of Pomona -NAFEX
22. Fruit of Warm Climates -J. Morton
23. Drip Irrigation -Robert Kourik
24. Nuts of the World -Menninger
25. Secrets of the Soil -Christopher Bird & Peter Tomkins
26. The Book of Bamboo -David Farellay ?
27. Palms Throughout the World -David Jones
28. Plant Propagation -Sunset Books & others
29. The World Was My Garden -D. Fairchild
30. Living Water -Olaf Alexander
31. Hand Made Hot Water Systems -Art Sussman & Richard Frazier
32. Weeds Control Without Poisons -C. Walters
33. Weeds and What They Tell -Pfeiffer
34. Grasp the Nettle -Peter Proctor
35. ACERS USA, all you can find including back issues -Walters
36. The A.B.C.s of Bee Keeping -?
37. Para-magnetism -Phillip Callahan
38. Ancient Mysteries Modern Visions -Phillip Callahan, Viktor Schauberger, Callum Coates
39. Farmers of Forty Centuries -F.H.King
40. The Luther Burbank Series -L. Burbank
41. Lost Crops of the Incas -National Academy Press
42. The Challenge of the Negev -M. Evenari
43. Raising Poultry Successfully -Will Graves
44. Free-Range Poultry -Katie Thear
45. Small-Scale Poultry Keeping -Ray Feltwell
46. Backyard Poultry -Alanna Moore
47. For the Love of Ducks -Nyiri Murtagh
48. Rabbits for Food and Profit -Lee Schwanz
49. Basic carpentry, plumbing, wiring, concrete, fencing etc. -Sunset or Ortho Books
50. Look for other good books on gardening, solar power, NFTs, fungus and soils

Presto chango you'll have better education and integrity. Now wasn't that simple?