GLR January-February 2026

moth Russians” that tower and explode into heads that weigh a pound or more, perennials with their reserved disk florets, “Moulin Rouge” with their surprising red petals, and “Taiyo” with their picture-perfect stalk. This summer, a mammoth vari ety planted itself in the middle of a vegetable bed that the Zumwalt Acres crew—a farming collective that Patricia is part of—were tending. They decided to leave it there all season, even though it shaded out some of the seedlings. It was so proud, it felt wrong to rip it out. In the making of Playing in the Dirt ,we watched queer artists pop off, too. The book features collages with organic mélange, homemade linoleum stamps, a hand-dyed quilt, and various fiber arts. Artists also contributed photography, digital art, a multi-page comic series, poetry, essays. We also included recipes and DIY instructions for preparing foraged goods. For every queer artist, we used a unique vantage and mix of materials and methods. Beyond the dozens of contributors, six queer farmers sat on the editorial board. Within this group, conversations on topics like the appropriate color scheme of the book or resonant fonts often stretched for weeks. We knew we wanted to deliver something that was confidently earthy, Midwestern, and queer. Beet-stained pages, explosive scans of flowers, and detailed microscope photos of weeds were some of the design elements that helped define the book’s personality.

For a long time, Midwestern agriculturalists turned to al manacs for folk wisdom, used an astrological calendar, and marked holidays. Historian Marion Barber Stowell described the almanac as a repository of miscellany: “It was clock, calen dar, weatherman, reporter, textbook, preacher, guidebook, atlas, navigational aid, doctor, bulletin board, agricultural advisor, and entertainer.” Playing in the Dirt doesn’t set out to be an al manac, but its unique jumble of miscellany does, indeed, harken to this tradition. In the early stages of this project, we sometimes referred to it as “that queer farmer art thing” because it was hard to put into words exactly what to call it when a zine meets a literary journal and a collabo rative art book. Similarly, many queer farm ers may struggle to identify themselves. Oppressive systems that thrive on silence and rigid categorization have made it chal lenging to build the relationships and vocabularies that are res onant for growers. G ARLIC S CAPESAND G ENEROSITY “I’ M LEARNING HOW to just use plants in all of their different ways,” one farmer said. “Garlic scapes [stalks] have been fun and new to me: You can pickle them, you can put them in sal ads, they’re so fun. They have helped me think through dif ferent ways to use plants and give gratitude to them as well.” Planting a garlic clove will produce an entire garlic bulb. In

A major throughline in queer farming is that the rela ti onships with plants, bugs, land, and animals that farming a ff ords are life a ffi rming.

January–February 2026

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