For the past 36 years, Des Kennedy and his family have lived largely outside their hand-built house in intimate contact with the Earth — its creatures, its changing seasons, and its weather patterns. In this charming book’s 52 chapters, Kennedy brings readers deep into his garden, week by week, from winter’s dormancy to summer’s splendor. With his trademark self-effacing humor, the author captures the essence of the gardening experience, exploring his triumphs, failures, mishaps, and occasional magic. Undaunted by setbacks and lusting for the perfect garden, Kennedy takes readers with him on a gardening journey rich with insights and adventures. The effects of devastating snow storms; the slow-food cuisine of rutabagas, parsnips, and carrots; the gardener's inalienable right to dress in rags; the outlandish behaviour and florid oratory induced by flowering poppies — these and scores of other topics meander through the book's gardening year alternately informing, inspiring, and amusing.

Des Kennedy is a novelist, essayist and veteran back-to-the-lander. The author of nine previous books, in both fiction and non-fiction, he has been three times nominated for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. He’s contributed many articles on environmental issues, gardening and rural living to a wide variety of publications in Canada and the United States, and has been featured on numerous regional and national television and radio programs. A celebrated speaker, known for his passion and irreverent wit, he’s performed at conferences, schools, festivals, botanical gardens, art galleries, garden shows and wilderness gatherings. Active for many years in environmental and social justice issues, he was an organizer of the successful civil disobedience campaign in Strathcona Provincial Park in 1988 and was recognized as a key supporter in the struggle to save Clayoquot Sound. In the ’70s and early ’80s, he lived and worked with two First Nations bands attempting to defend their traditional territories in north-central B.C. against industrial clear-cutting. In the ’90s he was a founding director of a successful community land trust on Denman Island. Des and his partner Sandy live a conserver lifestyle in their hand-built house surrounded by gardens and woodlands.

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