Most people would have looked at the little back garden, ten metres by four, and immediately written it off as a place to grow food. Yet, with little money and not much experience of practical gardening, Michael and Julia Guerra turned this unpromising site into a powerhouse of abundance.Julie had a bit of gardening knowledge, but Michael hadn’t so much as sown a seed when they decided to start growing food. But he did have design skills, partly from his background as an engineer and partly from a permaculture design course. Design skills are helpful but most important is taking your time to think about what you’re going to do: in their impatience to get growing, Michael and Julia spent much of their first season wishing they’d done things differently, and spent time the following winter deciding how to change the lay out. The actual change only took them one weekend’s work.