A lot of Aussies and some overseas readers went into mourning this month. No, not about Charlie Kirk (yuck) but about the much more important decision to close Grass Roots Magazine.

Edition 291 (Oct/Nov 2025) marked the end of an era. Running from the 1970s through to present with bi monthly editions, this venerable periodical has been a mainstay of many people’s journey of self reliance. Along with the famous Earth Garden, they were a literal bible for folks on this journey. Earth Garden lasted for 200 quarterly editions spanning 50 years and closed up shop earlier this year. Having dedicated their lives to Earth Garden, Alan and Judith thought that they’d done enough and wanted to move on to other things.

The Millers – Megg, and David took over the helm in 1975 and manned the ship until this year when David, sadly passed. They were joined on the journey Jessamy (aka Sunni) who who grew up as part of a much bigger family – of readers. We can’t forget Emma either, who was the office contact (and I’m sure had many more roles) that I chatted with via email on many occasions, as would you if you contacted the office.

It’s ironic that, for a family magazine that espoused low tech living, it was the competition of technology and the faceless requirements of their online competition that created the choice of struggling on or resting. Happily, they chose well deserved rest and I think we all wish them the very best for whatever they choose to do.

For me and this website, it is a bigger loss. Not only were we avid readers and had a collection of editions from #13 all the way to the early 200s (which was donated to Joe’s Connected Garden fro their lending library) but I’ve written 24 articles for them. Early articles were focused on DIY, as our garden grew. Later articles shifted the focus towards herbalism. Our friend Cara introduced me to the GR family back in 2018 with the recommendation of writing for them, something I apprehensively tried. Writing for GR helped me keep going at a time when I was thinking of chucking in this website at times when our views were near zero and we weren’t even receiving a single ‘like’ per month. Knowing that I was accepted by something bigger and kinder kept me going.

Our introductory post (very nervously submitted) was called simply ‘Ligaya Garden’ and was in edition no. 249 Oct/Nov 2018. I remember also writing on both sides of the shift to colour!

Jelina co-wrote a couple of articles with me and she even appeared on the contents page a couple of times. It was a dream of mine to get her on the front cover one day. We’re proud to have made a small contribution to what is a legend in the annals of permaculture, self reliance and just plain down home grass roots goodness.

Recently, Roseanne, from Joe’s Connected Garden started writing for GR too, starting by sharing the experience of her and Andrew’s very non-traditional marriage ceremony

Best wishes to the GR family – staff, writers and readers. You made the world a better place.