I Gardened Wrong
for Twenty Years

The Story Behind GrowPerma

The Moment Everything Changed

I'm Peter. I've grown food my entire adult life. I did everything the books told me — straight rows, deep beds, bags of mulch, gallons of water. Every August I made the same promise: next year I'll be more organised. The tomatoes never held up.

By the time I was 38, I was tired, and the garden was tired, and I couldn't figure out why. Every weekend felt like punishment. By October the garden always looked worse than it had in May.

Then I picked up Edible Forest Gardens. There's a chapter describing a 30-year-old food forest in Massachusetts. In February. Snow on the ground. Nobody had weeded it, watered it, or fertilised it in a decade. And it was still producing more food than the tilled bed next door.

I read that passage three times. Then I went outside and looked at my own garden — the bare rows, the dead tomato plants, the empty mulch bags — and the truth landed all at once: I wasn't gardening with nature. I was fighting it. Every single Saturday for twenty years.

I read seventeen books in four months. Mollison. Götsch. Shepard. Hemenway. Every one said the same thing the conventional books had been hiding: the most productive gardens in the world are the ones the gardener barely touches. That was the week I started GrowPerma.

Depth Without Intimidation

Go deeper than "plant these together." Explain the ecology and why. Never make people feel they need a degree to garden well.

Honesty Over Hype

We tell you when something doesn't work, when a product isn't worth it, when simple beats expensive. No greenwashing, ever.

Nature as Teacher

Every recommendation grounded in ecosystem science and 17 foundational permaculture texts. Centuries of indigenous wisdom meets modern research.

Every Scale Matters

Whether 6 square feet of balcony or 60 acres of farmland — permaculture principles apply. We design for every scale.

Bridge, Don't Convert

Meet gardeners where they are. We don't preach permaculture — we reveal it naturally through solving real gardening problems.

The Weekend Gardener

45% of our readers

"I just want my garden to actually work this year without spending every weekend fixing problems."

The Permaculture-Curious

Our core audience

"I keep feeling like I'm fighting nature instead of working with it. There has to be a better way."

The Practitioner

Advanced readers

"Most permaculture content is either too shallow or too preachy. I want real depth from someone who's done the reading."

The Homesteader

Production-focused

"I don't care what Mollison said — I care whether this food forest will actually feed my family in 3 years."

The Urban Grower

Fastest growing

"I have 6 square feet of balcony and a dream. Don't tell me I need a backyard."

Gaia's Garden

Toby Hemenway

Permaculture Manual

Bill Mollison

Edible Forest Gardens

Dave Jacke

One-Straw Revolution

Masanobu Fukuoka

Carrots Love Tomatoes

Louise Riotte