​Gabriel Howearth was the co-founder of Buena Fortuna Gardens and a deeply respected botanist, seed saver, and early pioneer of organic and regenerative agriculture. His life’s work was rooted in a simple but powerful belief: that protecting seeds, plants, and traditional knowledge was inseparable from protecting culture, food sovereignty, and the future of the planet.

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As a co-founder of Seeds of Change in the United States, Gabriel played a formative role in bringing heirloom and organic seeds into wider circulation, long before sustainability became a mainstream conversation. His work took him across continents, collaborating closely with small-scale farmers and Indigenous communities to preserve native plant varieties and the ancestral wisdom attached to them. He approached this work not as an academic exercise, but as a partnership—listening first, learning deeply, and honoring the people who had safeguarded these seeds for generations.

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At Buena Fortuna Gardens, Gabriel’s vision became tangible. He carefully curated thousands of edible, medicinal, and utilitarian plants, transforming the land into a living botanical sanctuary. The gardens were designed not simply to be observed, but to be used, studied, tasted, and understood—a place where biodiversity, education, and ecological stewardship coexist in practice, not theory. Every planting choice reflected intention: resilience over convenience, diversity over uniformity, long-term health over short-term yield.

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Beyond his technical knowledge, Gabriel was a quiet teacher. His legacy lives on in the soil itself, in saved seeds passed hand to hand, and in the values embedded in the gardens’ ongoing work. Buena Fortuna Gardens continues to be guided by his philosophy: that caring for the land is an act of responsibility, humility, and hope, and that true abundance is measured not by extraction, but by what we choose to preserve and pass forward.