Growceries How to Build Backyard Food Security with Living Soil, Simple Systems, and Gardens That Work with Your Brain What if your backyard could become your grocery store? Not someday. Not when you have acres of land. Not when life finally slows down. But starting right where you are. Growceries is a calm, practical guide to building backyard food security using living soil, simple garden systems, and resilient growing methods that work in the real world — even if you’re overwhelmed, busy, injured, neurodivergent, or starting with very little money. This book is not about perfection. It is about creating steady, reliable food systems that quietly grow stronger year after year. Written by permaculture designer and urban homesteader Heather Butler of Hogs and Hens Urban Farm , Growceries blends practical gardening knowledge with lived experience. After building their homestead while traveling for work, surviving a devastating accident, and rebuilding life through resilience and community, Heather and her family have learned how to grow real food using systems that are forgiving, adaptable, and deeply rooted in nature. Inside this book you’ll learn how to: • Build living soil ecosystems that make gardening easier every season • Turn a backyard into a reliable food source , even in small spaces • Grow calorie crops and protein foods that actually feed your family • Design gardens that work with your brain instead of against it • Use deep mulch and permaculture principles to dramatically reduce work • Grow food on a very small budget using recycled and repurposed materials • Preserve harvests without overwhelm • Recover gracefully when life gets busy and the garden gets away from you Along the way you’ll discover how soil biology works, why forests are the best teachers in the garden, how permaculture guilds build resilient ecosystems, and why food security begins with something far simpler than most people realize: Healthy soil. At its heart, Growceries is not just a gardening guide. It is an invitation to slow down, reconnect with the land, and create a backyard that nourishes both body and spirit. You do not need perfect health. You do not need perfect organization. You do not need perfect conditions. You only need to start. One bed. One seed. One season at a time. Because food security does not begin in a warehouse. It begins in the soil beneath your feet.