Nature Literature discussion

Please add your comments about Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden here.

I think I’ll try the audiobook

I got the audiobook from the local library after a long wait. Now about 20% done. I especially liked her approach to weeding. If it provides a benefit to pollinators and other wildlife then don’t get too obsessive about removing it when your time is better spent on other tasks. She mentions buying ladybugs online to rid her vegetable garden of aphids. Not sure how I feel about that since the ladybugs may be non-native and some are invasive. I’m now into a section where she talks about Annie Dillard and other nature writers who write about a connection to nature as a solitary experience. She seems conflicted about wanting time alone to pursue her own nature writing while complaining about writers who did just that. Problem being Covid lockdown and kid has to school at home. But I get it. My own native landscaping projects have been curtailed by quotidian demands. If you’ve read the book this far you’ll understand why I use the word quotidian lol.

I finished the audiobook narrated by the author. The author's garden is the premise of an exhaustive exploration of social issues including race, social, and environmental justice, and so much more. At times it seemed tangential, and I didn't always make the same leaps as the author did. I worried when she veered toward John Muir for his contributions to our protected wild spaces, that she would miss his often limited views of society (women and race), but she covered those too. As I do, she respected him for his contributions but called him out for his failings. I liked the book, but I walk through so many details in my work each week, that this wide exploration didn't quite meet my current reading mood.

I'm about 70% along, listening to the audiobook, but something is really bothering me. Dungy talks about a church service where the minister prays for all those "on the outside looking in". She is angry about this, tells the minister she's angry on her way out and stays away from church thereafter. This is a nuance of interracial relations that I struggle with. I can grasp the anger and exasperation but don't see that slamming the door on the entire community benefits anyone. It just perpetuates the status quo. Frankly, I sympathize with the minister. So okay, it's not her job to educate him or notify him whenever he offends. Then why include this episode in her book? If not to edify the reader, is it just a rant?

Finished reading Soil in September just before the library repossessed it from my e-reader.
Dungy’s linguistic sensibility is acute. She is sharply attuned to the meaning of words. I’ve not read her poetry but her prose is lyrical. The theme of each chapter is related to the process of gardening and to particular plants. Bindweed is the chapter dealing with the political climate following the 2016 election. If you wonder what a prairie garden has to do with politics: “every politically engaged person should have a garden. By politically engaged, I mean everyone with a vested interest in the direction the people on this planet take in relationship to others. We should all take some time to plant life in the soil.” In other words, people and politics are not apart from the natural world but are a part of the natural world.
I learned a few new things about gardening and was surprised to learn that starting in the 1950’s the USDA recommended planting male trees along streets and sidewalks to avoid the mess of fruit and seeds from female plants. The commercial nursery trade propagated male plants and promoted their use in residential landscapes as well. Male plants produce pollen and the proliferation of male plants may account in part for the increase in human allergies.
For the Goodreads Nature Literature group, did anyone else read Soil? Your comments are welcome.