Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden

“I dig up a lot of awful history when I kneel in my garden. But, my god, a lot of beauty grows out of this soil as well.”

This wonderful book is about the garden in Ft. Collins, CO that Camille T. Dungy, a professor at Colorado State University, cultivates. It is also about the history of nature writing in the US, and the historical relationship Black people have with land and gardens here. It's about ecology, understanding ecosystems and trying to work with them instead of dominating the landscape. There is a lot in this book that is not specifically about gardens, but bears directly on the garden that Dr. Dungy is building. I loved it and I think it's an important contribution to the nature writing genre.