It’s not like I wasn’t ambitious when I had the idea of starting a gardening Substack. I just didn’t know, at the time, where this was going to take me, or how far.
It would certainly be so much more than a porch and a couple of pots with plants.
I was tortured by the growing influence of AI over my life, and I needed a respite. Meanwhile, my investments in gardening were growing over time. I wanted to find — and share — a life experience that wasn’t so dominated by work, tech, politics… and anger.
I wanted quality time.
I wanted pleasure.
I wanted fulfillment.
So one day I left town for a week, experimented with a rudimentary drip irrigation system on the porch, and the rest is history — or at least the history of this project.
I’m a very industrious person, so I created the design and immediately started to write to fill in the blanks, or better, the holes in the page among different sections, but it wasn’t long before I realized that I would have a problem talking and sharing TPG, because popularity is not one of my strengths. I’m not a “people person” either, leaning in far stronger on the hermit side.
And oh, yes, I still kept that elusive publisher’s side alive, hidden for years as I was making a living just translating, after I moved to the USA 12 years ago today.
I don’t know how it happened, or what changed, but last Tuesday I woke up in the middle of the night and came up with this comprehensive project that would unify writing, sharing, gardening, and publishing, hopefully also finding a way — a not too painful and not too invasive way — to share my passions with people and invite them to participate in it.
The Porch Gardener Press — or TPG Press for insiders — was born that night.
It is still a baby, and the plan is that it will reach maturity around September 2027, but the work already started and we’re open for business. The plan is to publish an inaugural volume with my own essays in time for Christmas, so you can get a better picture of how all of this is going to work.
Meanwhile, I want to invite you to participate right away, as each book we publish in our collection will take a year to come to fruition.
We are already accepting the first proposals for early analysis.
Here are the first ideas:
This is a literary project with a focus on fulfilling life experiences far away from phones, tech, AI, and politics — a meditative expression supported by a garden, or gardening
The books are essentially art books, square, short, with 25-60 pages ( around 6,000-15,000 words) — an easy, yet profound read
Publishing services are paid a reasonable price, but they can be paid slowly over the whole year leading to the publication
TPG will publish 1 book a month in a total of 12 a year, at least initially, starting in the fall of 2027
All authors are required to bring in 12 subscribers to TPG, to progressively form a substantial readership for all. Subscribers don’t need to be paid subscribers initially, but eventually TPG will establish a paywall
Authors will be contributors to TPG and allowed to publish one or more essays according to their inspiration and success with readers, and will also be tasked with reviewing their colleagues when a new title is published
Authors will retain 100% of their rights as the books will be published on KDP under their own accounts. True to its own no-tech philosophy, the project will only include printed books
A brief note about “bringing 12 subscribers,” and here is where it gets interesting: You can bring friends, relatives, and neighbors who are dear to you, but they will be complete strangers to other authors, truly expanding each other’s potential through the power of sharing.
Yes, this is all still a dream dancing in my head. I hope y’all will help me make it come true very soon.
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Email us at contact@theporchgardener.com for more info.