Field Notes from my journey creating Living Ground, Ecuador.
“If I want people to care about the Earth itself, about the land and soil that feed us, about the way our food, medical, political, and religious systems are shaping us, and about how divided and dysfunctional we have become, then I need to plant those concerns inside stories that are wide enough and deeply connective enough that others can recognize themselves within them.” Leisha of the Living Ground Project.
Living Ground Recent Posts
Growing Pains
This is not the article people see when they scroll past a photograph of green gardens, bright salads, ferments bubbling in glass jars, or smiling faces around a Gratitude table. This is the part that sits behind it, the part where creation is not curated, but carried. Living Ground did not arrive fully formed. It did not…
The Ecology of Blood Sugar
Modern blood sugar dysfunction did not appear overnight. It developed alongside the rise of refined foods, concentrated sweeteners, processed carbohydrates, sedentary lifestyles, and the increasing separation between humans and the living systems that once regulated metabolism naturally. Today, millions of people are moving toward pre-diabetes and metabolic dysfunction without realizing it. Many are not eating what would…
Carrying Living Ground
Most people do not see what happens behind the scenes at Living Ground. They see gardens, food, quiet beauty, and perhaps a vision they can touch for a moment. What they do not see is what it actually takes to hold this together. They do not see the layers of confusion, disappointment, emotional labor, and ongoing struggle…
Our Work
What It Actually Takes to Build Living Ground
Personal reflections, in this moment, as I sit inside the unfolding reality of creating Living Ground and living inside the obstacles that come with it, both visible and invisible, practical and emotional, internal and external. I find myself feeling more emotional than usual right now, not because something dramatic has happened in a single moment, but because…
Hot Flashes & Misunderstanding Estrogen
One of the most common things I hear from women moving through menopause is the statement that they no longer have hormones or estrogen. It is usually said with certainty, resignation, and often with the belief that the body has lost something essential and irreversible. This idea is repeated so often that it has become accepted as…
Purple Carrot Club
The Purple Carrot Club did not begin as a plan. It began as a pull I could not ignore, something that felt both clear and uncertain at the same time. At first, it almost felt childlike. The name, the idea, the way it came together. There was no structure, no strategy, no business model behind it. Just…
Living Path of Vitamin B
We talk about “B vitamins” as if they are a single substance you can swallow, measure, or fix with a pill, but in the body they behave more like a living network. Vitamin B is never just one thing, and that is where the misunderstanding usually begins. They are a family, a cooperative system, a relay team….
Cholesterol, Confusion, and the Story We Are Not Being Told
Cholesterol has become one of the most misunderstood substances in the body. It is often spoken about as if it were a toxin that must be lowered at all costs, yet it is one of the most essential molecules for life. Every cell membrane depends on it. Hormones depend on it. The brain, which is largely made…
Curry Tree Medicine
I had never even heard of the curry tree before coming to Ecuador. Now I cannot imagine this place without her. She is one of the most beautiful small trees in the garden, graceful and decorative, with glossy green leaves that seem to shimmer in the light. Birds adore her. In truth, she could easily be called…
What is Living Ground
,The Living Ground Project is a living classroom in southern Ecuador, built from soil, food, plants, microbes, and community.
Here, we grow much of what we serve and teach. The gardens feed the café, the apothecary, the workshops, the books, and the people who come here to learn a different way of living. Everything begins with the soil, because healthy soil grows stronger plants, stronger food, and stronger people.
Living Ground is a place for practical self-reliance. We teach gardening, soil regeneration, fermentation, herbal medicine, food preservation, natural health, and the connection between the human microbiome and the soil food web. Our work is not theory. It is lived every day through the gardens, the kitchen, the store, the café, the animals, the workshops, and the land itself.
The vision is simple. Restore the soil, grow real food, preserve knowledge, create local work, and help people remember that health does not begin in a bottle. It begins in relationship with the land, the microbes, the plants, the food, and each other.
Living Ground’s Online Courses in Self Reliance
