“When you take control of your own food and medicine, you become empowered to live in balance with the Earth.”
— Rosemary Gladstar
Book of
the Month
If you’ve ever found peace, purpose, or resistance in a garden, Soil will speak straight to your heart. In this beautifully written memoir, poet and environmentalist Camille Dungy shares her journey of turning a plain, mostly grass-filled suburban yard in Colorado into a flourishing, wild, and deeply personal garden full of native and diverse plants.
But this book isn’t just about flowers and mulch—it’s about motherhood, Black identity, environmental justice, and challenging the status quo. Dungy reflects on what it means to be a Black woman raising a child while cultivating a life rooted in care, history, and resistance—especially in spaces not always welcoming to either wild gardens or Black families.
Her garden becomes a metaphor for freedom and resilience. As she digs into the soil, she also unearths stories of Black history, ecological knowledge, and her own family’s legacy. Dungy resists the pressure to keep things neat and “acceptable,” pushing back against both neighborhood norms and societal expectations.
The writing is lyrical and honest. It’s part gardening journey, part cultural commentary, part poetic meditation. Think of it as an invitation to rethink not just how we garden, but how we live—especially in a world that often tries to box us in.
self.sus.tain.ability
[ SELF-suh-STAY-nuh-BIL-uh-tee]
In gardening this just means growing your own food in a way that keeps your plants healthy without needing a bunch of store-bought stuff.
It’s about using what nature gives you—saving seeds, making compost from food scraps, using natural ways to keep bugs away, and keeping your soil healthy—so your garden takes care of itself year after year.
Bonus points... you also can save money!!!. Basically, it’s working with the Earth instead of against it to grow fresh, healthy food right at home!