Leisha After so many days, months, and even years of dreaming, planning, building, digging, planting, painting, and pushing through, the Living Ground store is finally open.
On opening day, over 150 people came through the doors. I stood there and watched them wander through the aisles, pick up jars of fermented vegetables and sprouted seeds, smell the herbs and soaps, sip drinks from the café area, and smile. Some stayed for hours, sitting in the garden and talking, tasting, asking questions. There was a kind of quiet joy in the air that only happens when people feel connected to something real.
It was beautiful.
And it was not just beautiful because of the products on the shelves or the freshly planted beds outside. It was beautiful because of what it represented. This store, this place, is the living proof of hard work, persistence, and faith in something bigger than ourselves.
When I first walked into the abandoned highway workers’ dormitory in 2023, it felt like stepping into a forgotten corner of the world. The walls were cracked. The roof leaked. The garden was nothing but weeds and hard-packed soil. But I could already see it — the store, the café, the gardens bursting with food and herbs, the shelves lined with products made right here, the air full of the smell of soil and bread.
That vision carried me through many long days when my hands ached and my clothes were soaked in sweat and dust.
And it didn’t happen alone.
This is what I am most proud of, the people who stood beside me, each in their own way, bringing their hands and hearts to this project.
The building team worked through rain, heat, and endless surprises to make the old building strong and beautiful again. The landscape team turned dry, lifeless dirt into thriving beds, pathways, and green spaces full of texture and color. The compost team worked quietly in the background, turning scraps into living soil that now feeds our gardens and makes the herbs and vegetables glow with health.
The project team kept everything moving, coordinating, encouraging, and organizing to make sure nothing fell through the cracks.
The girls in the kitchen turned raw ingredients into miracles. They made ferments, breads, cheeses, sprouted seeds, drinks, and preserves that filled the shelves with color and flavor. The essential oil helpers bottled light into tiny jars, capturing the essence of our plants and flowers.
And there were so many more, the supporters who believed in us, who cheered from the sidelines, who lent us tools, gave us seeds, shared wisdom, and showed up when it mattered.
Every jar, every leaf, every tile, every seed in this place has someone’s fingerprints on it.
On opening day, I saw the children running in the garden, their hands in the earth. I saw old friends reconnecting, pointing at products, plants and laughing. I saw people who had never met before sit down at the same table.
I stood back and let it sink in.
This is what we’ve been working for. Not just a store full of beautiful products, but a place that reminds people of what is possible when we work with the land and with each other.
There were so many small moments that day that I will never forget. A woman held a bar of our handmade soap to her face and whispered, “This smells like my grandmother’s garden.” A man picked up a jar of spice and told me he had never seen anything like it. A little boy kept asking his mother, “Can we come back tomorrow?”
It reminded me that the Living Ground Project is more than a project. It is a way of being. It is about slowing down enough to see the microbes in the soil and the sparkle in each other’s eyes. It is about growing food, yes, but also growing community, growing trust, and growing resilience.
For years, I have been writing and teaching about these things in the books (Wild Plants, Live Blood Analysis for the Layperson, The Soil Microbiome, The Human Microbiome, The Immune Garden), in the courses, and in the articles here on the Grounded Path blog. But on opening day, all those words finally stood up and became something you could walk into, smell, taste, and touch.
It has not been easy. There were days when it felt impossible, when the rains came too hard, when money was too tight, when it felt like no one else could see the vision. There were nights when I lay awake worrying about whether the seeds we planted would even sprout. But we kept going. One nail at a time. One bed at a time. One jar at a time.
And now, here we are.
I cannot thank everyone enough. The builders, the gardeners, the kitchen crew, the compost crew, the helpers and cheerleaders who made this possible. This is your place too.
We still have more to do. The café is opening soon, in August, and we are already planning new workshops, tours, and products to share. The gardens will keep growing, the soil will keep healing, and so will we.
If you were here that day, thank you for coming. If you couldn’t make it, I hope you can visit soon. Bring your hands, bring your curiosity, bring your appetite for something real.
We are open. And we are just getting started.
