Soil & Water Management

This is the foundation under the grow-food-anywhere skill. You can know everything about planting and spacing and still fail if your soil is dead or your water management is wrong. Soil is not dirt -- it's a living system with billions of organisms in a handful, and those organisms do most of the work of feeding your plants. Water management means getting the right amount of water to the right place at the right time without wasting it. Both of these are learnable, and both reward paying attention more than spending money. A $10 soil test tells you more than $200 worth of random amendments.