Goodland Gardens Is
Rethinking the Backyard
Peter Berkey Brings Edible Plants
Into the Heart of Home Landscapes
By Tiana Molony | September 3, 2026
Read more Home & Garden Fall 2026 stories here.
When Peter Berkey moved to Florida’s panhandle in 2008, he was struck by what he saw as a “food desert.” The main grocery option near his home on Pensacola Beach was a Publix, and he felt there was a real lack of fresh, high-quality produce.
So he started growing his own food.
The beach environment, he quickly discovered, wasn’t exactly fertile. The soil was essentially sand. Berkey began driving around neighborhoods, collecting bags of yard waste left on the curb and composting them himself to create a growing medium. Out of that homemade soil, seeds began to thrive.
He was shocked, and it led him to want to do the same for other people in the area, though the idea never really panned out.
About five years later, he moved back home to Santa Barbara and started a garden of his own. He grew beets, carrots, kale, lettuce, arugula, and spinach. “Everything grows here,” he said of Santa Barbara’s forgiving climate.
At the time, gardening was still a side interest. Berkey worked full-time as a safety fleet coordinator for large corporations, including pharmaceutical companies, telecommunications firms, and oil and gas companies. He spent 150-200 days a year on the road, living out of hotels and eating out. The job was easy and comfortable, but he increasingly felt unchallenged.
Looking for something that sparked more passion, he ventured into commercial cannabis, where he learned about propagation, cultivation, and more advanced techniques, including brewing inoculated teas and foliar feeding. The learning experience for him “was very hands-on,” he said. “That’s how I learn the best — through doing.”
Eventually, he returned to his old job. Then lockdown came, and he realized he had “hit [his] ceiling of opportunity.” He felt personally stunted by the lack of growth in his full-time work, so he began looking for passion again. “I was trying to find direction,” he said. “I was looking for any opportunity that would present itself.”
He enrolled in an online program with soil microbiologist Dr. Elaine Ingham through the Soil Food Web, where he learned more about soil health, microorganisms, and the intricate web of life that creates a thriving growing environment.
At the same time, concerns about food scarcity and a desire to live more sustainably were pushing him toward a new path: turning his passion for growing into a business that could help others do the same.
He thought back to his childhood, growing up on Raintree Ranch in Goleta and finding joy in being surrounded by livestock and agriculture. He decided he “was just going to take the leap,” he said. So, he founded Goodland Gardens, and six years later, he’s never looked back.
Today, the boutique gardening service focuses primarily on installing and maintaining edible gardens and orchards. The process typically begins with a consultation. Some clients already have established garden footprints that need revitalizing; others are starting from scratch. Rather than simply asking what clients like, Berkey often starts by asking what they don’t like.
One of the most distinctive elements of Goodland Gardens is what Berkey calls a “decentralized food network.” The idea is simple: Many properties produce more than their owners can consume, whether it’s an avocado tree heavy with fruit, overflowing citrus, or a bumper crop of plums. Much of that abundance goes to waste.
Goodland Gardens steps in to harvest and aggregate the excess, then redistributes it among its clients. A household with an avocado tree, for example, might receive oranges, apples, plums, or other fruits from another property. It’s a small, closed-loop system that adds variety without requiring anyone to have a giant farm.
Berkey is also pushing beyond the traditional idea of a vegetable garden as a few raised beds tucked into a corner of the yard. He wants to expand beyond the lines of the garden bed and incorporate edibles into the overall landscape — what he calls “edible landscapes.”
Rather than treating a garden as an afterthought placed in “the least optimal space,” he wants it to be central: beautiful, visible, and woven into daily life.
As he puts it, a garden “is an ecosystem. It’s not just a plant that you’re putting in the ground. Everything supports everything else around it.”
Goodland Gardens is looking for qualified individuals to join their growing team. For more information, see goodlandgardens.com.
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