September 2021 DIRT NERD VEGETABLES IS MURDER I believe plants feel things the way we feel things, that they experience joy and pain and sadness and pleasure, and that they do so in a way that we don’t... Ian Willson
July 2021 DIRT NERD WEED (PART II) As the summer sun summons ever more vegetal monstrosities from their slumber deep beneath our unassuming soils, this month we continue our exploration into some of... Ian Willson
June 2021 DIRT NERD WEED It is an arbitrary word, subjective by almost any measure. A word’s meaning will inevitably shift as it moves through time and cultures, and so also it is with weeds, whose... Ian Willson
April 2021 DIRT NERD MAKING IT RAIN, AFTER THE RAIN Dear Ian, I write with a question for Dirt Nerd. The question is rain barrels. They seem like a good idea insofar as we have tons of roof runoff,... Ian Willson
March 2021 DIRT NERD In celebration of ANTIGRAVITY’s 200th edition, 198 lines of haiku, and these two lines. Like all Future Crawfish Paper, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s... Ian Willson
February 2021 DIRT NERD A REVOLUTIONARY NEW GARDENING METHOD If there is a common thread that ties my gardening advice columns together, albeit loosely, it is that gardening buzzwords, cure-alls,... Ian Willson
January 2021 DIRT NERD ANTI-PLANNIST Growing vegetables is never going to be cheap or free. It is, at its center, an exchange of energy for energy, elements for elements, food for food, life for life,... Ian Willson
December 2020 DIRT NERD CUTTING BACK Once upon a time not so long ago, a great notion came to pass upon our culture, passed down by those most comfortable in their ephemeral notions of security and... Ian Willson
October 2020 DIRT NERD DON’T FALL FOR “THE FALL” PLANTING SCHEDULE Growing prototypical American-type vegetables in prototypical American home vegetable garden ways can be very tricky for both... Ian Willson
September 2020 DIRT NERD WET ASS PLANTS My inaugural Dirt Nerd, written four years and some change ago at the onset of a more innocent sort of summer, was about the importance of watering your plants... Ian Willson
August 2020 DIRT NERD LAWNS ARE HELL The “Grow Food Not Lawns” angle of the food justice movement is played out to the degree that I get sponsored ads through Instagram for t-shirts with the very... Ian Willson
July 2020 DIRT NERD There are Black farmers and Black organized community gardens in this city, and their impact on food insecurity and social justice has been potent to say the least. To name a few... Ian Willson
