The Garden Visionary Growers and Farmers of the Counterculture

The legendary countercultural growers who never stopped changing the world.

In the 1970s, a generation underwent experiences with psychedelics and Eastern philosophy. They reacted violently against the US government as it revealed itself in the Vietnam War, were cowed by the Oil Shocks of 1973 and 1979, and repulsed by the use of the pesticide DDT. These experiences created an unprecedented interest in growing and farming.

The Garden explores the history of these visionary, countercultural farmers and growers, and shows how their groundbreaking practices continue to influence the way we grow and eat today. Starting with the influence of Rudolph Steiner on the hippies of the 1970s and the history of the organic food movement, the book also covers the back-to-the-land movement, Permaculture, natural farming, radical ecology, Black farmers, the Vedas, and much more. Told with original interviews with many of the scene's big names, The Garden is a groundbreaking work of research into the untold story of how the counterculture changed the way we think about food and our relationship to nature.

These growers and farmers did not come from farming backgrounds, but a great many of them either headed to the countryside or found ways to grow or farm near cities. Not many stayed the course, but those that did have had an immeasurable influence on the landscape of alternative agriculture today. Their pioneering example and radical ideas are a beacon to those of us thinking how we can live different lives in the 2020s.

Matthew Ingram wrote about music at his cult blog, Woebot, which got mentioned in Slate and The Guardian. He penned a column for FACT magazine, and some reviews and articles for The Wire. With fellow blogger Mark Fisher he set up an online forum called Dissensus. Then for a five-year stretch he put out a series of well-received sample-based records as Woebot playing live with his colleagues Ghost Box, and at the ICA and Barbican. Ingram had always followed influences through music and found that those connections started to lead him altogether out of the field. An animator by trade, in 2017 he made a twenty-minute documentary Vitamin C, then, following the same angle, wrote a meaty book Retreat about health and the counterculture. Recently, like many others since the COVID pandemic, he has been interested in gardening. Today he runs the urban gardening blog Sick Veg.