Garden Variety Dykes: Lesbian Traditions in Gardening

by Irene Reti, Valerie Jean Chase (Editor), Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Tending eight-foot-tall houseplants in a New York high-rise. Starting an herb farm in the Ozarks. A cornfield in Los Angeles. The politics of snails. A safe sex way to garden. An Australian bush garden. The first woman arborist in California. A lesbian rosarian. Becky Birtha on Gracie's garden of collards and string beans ... These stories and more are in this entertaining, illustrated anthology.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction, Lesbian, Queer, Anthologies

121 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1994

About the author

Irene Reti is a writer and publisher. She is the author/editor of several books with lesbian, feminist, and Jewish themes. From 1984-2000, she ran the lesbian feminist press HerBooks. After the close of HerBooks, Reti continued the press in the form of Juniper Lake Press, a publisher with a feminist, Jewish, and environmental focus.

She directs the oral history program at the university library of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Reti holds a BA in environmental studies and an MA in history from UC Santa Cruz.

Reviews

[lithomancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Irene Reti for making books that are so specifically about my very specific interests.

[Salomé · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bravo les lesbiennes !

Une importante anthologie pour celleux qui aiment les jardins, qui rêvent d’une ferme écologique, qui souhaitent mêler amour, politique et jardinage.

[Rachel Hellman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology was so wonderfully grounded and varied and affirming and profound and mundane. I so wish I could purchase a copy but ig its out of print and like $200 online?! Rude.

[yadriel v. s. alvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was so. yea. i’m sorry for not formulating the words for a proper review, but this anthology has become very special to me.

[Michaela Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the book of non-fiction short stories called Garden Variety Dykes: Lesbian Traditions in Gardening (1994). I am hesitant to tell you all about it because I depend on being able to lift the slim, bright green book off the shelf whenever I volunteer at the Lavender Library, but I think you need to know about it.

These ’90s queers wrote in submissions from all over the world about their small stoop plants, big flower gardens, sweat-won small farms that deer immediately ate, etc. Of course there are metaphors, and it’s impossible to write about long projects without life events seeping in, so it’s also full of uniquely queer and totally normal life events that are achingly lovely to read about. It’s a delight.

[Cecilia Shearon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very hard for me to put into words how much this one meant to me! It is a thing of joy. Will be revisiting frequently.

This book is currently out of print, but the publisher, Irene Reti, has a scan of this book available on her website: https://escholarship.org/content/qt4w...

Otherwise $200-300 on eBay!!

[Grace]

gloria anzladua is in this which is pretty funny

[Léo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plutôt 3,5, mais comme d habitude les lesbiennes sont superbes et incroyables

[Lexi-Shae Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gentle, compelling, and relatable anthology. Recommended.

[Isabel Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

loveeee an anthology and each story was perfect. so inspiring and made me feel so grateful and appreciative

[brad pepsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this so much, wrote a poem interpolating A Profusion of Freessia by Shoney Sien <3