DIRT NERD

September 2023

DIRT NERD

CLIMATE CHAOS Remember way back in early July 2023 when it was just a “Texas Heat Dome?” A simple event with dimensions and origins that we could pretend had sensible...

Ian Willson

August 2023

Photo Issue: Adrienne Battistella, Benry Fauna, Ian Willson

Adrienne Battistella adriennebattistella.com Sarah Quintana with flowers, June 2023. Top photo: Tra La in studio, May 2023. From the ongoing photo series MUSE, a collaboration of...

Adrienne Battistella, Benry Fauna, Ian Willson

July 2023

DIRT NERD

MEDITATIONS ON A CUTE VIDEO OF A HEDGEHOG WEARING A PAIR OF CROCS Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of...

Ian Willson

July 2023

PHOTOS

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Hayden Legg, Ian Willson, James Cullen, Katie Sikora

May 2023

DIRT NERD

PASTORAL PEST MANAGEMENT There is an overarching theme in much of my writing about the inevitability of death fraught throughout the act of nurturing life. This can often make the...

Ian Willson

April 2023

DIRT NERD

FRESH POT Spring is here. More than a little bit even. It’s time for fresh starts. You may be in the middle of a Mardi Gras reset, perhaps you are rearranging your furniture or...

Ian Willson

March 2023

DIRT NERD

THE MAGICAL FRUIT Duh. It’s beans. And I have moderately controversial opinions about them. I think “Southern peas” are not worth growing in the Southern home garden. As...

Ian Willson

February 2023

DIRT NERD

MEDITATIONS ON LIMINALITY AT THE END OF THE WORLD OR WHAT IS A VEGETABLE? The End of The World Liminal. It was very much a buzzword in 2022, though it didn’t make the top 10...

Ian Willson

December 2022

DIRT NERD

DIRT TO DIRT Planting Zone 9, which includes New Orleans, occupies a very special space between life and death and the very meaning of those words in the plant universe. Just...

Ian Willson

November 2022

DIRT NERD

PICKING PROPER PLANTS There you are, chomping at the bit to exist outside capitalism, so utterly once and for all convinced that money is an illusion perpetuated only by our...

Ian Willson

October 2022

DIRT NERD

GARDEN COMMUNITY So you want to control your garden? You want it to do what you want it to do, to perform for you the way you always dreamed it would when you sat back on your...

Ian Willson

June 2022

DIRT NERD

WE ARE NOT COMPANIONS A Q&A with the Three Sisters Beans, corn, and squash: Has there been a more transcendent trio in the history of the alimentary universe? This month I sit...

Ian Willson