The New Agrarian

Originally published in the Northern Agrarian, July/August 2008.

My back yard has never been in danger of winning any awards from glossy design magazines. Plantain rules a few patches where I let the ducks graze too freely. The old garden bed the dogs use for naps is grown up in weeds that are fascinating in their diversity and virulence but neither productive nor conventionally attractive. And one corner is littered with the detritus of a series of projects and incidents, planned and unplanned, that beset us last year. Read on

When my wife and I moved into our first house, my biggest concern was not that it needed paint, or that the driveway was rutting out, or that the carport was infested with spiders — though all of that was true. No, my biggest concern was the yard. It’s a fairly small yard, only about a quarter-acre; most of the lot is wooded. But however small the yard, however shady and littered with rocks and stumps, I was still going to have to buy a lawn mower. And I really, really didn’t want to buy a lawn mower. Read on