Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard

The story of a small garden large enough to hold everything in life that really matters.


“These days the portion of Eden for which I am responsible is fairly modest. . . . It is a small house in a small garden in a small neighborhood. But it is large enough . . . Large enough to hold everything dear.”

Digging In tells the story of the author’s move into an early twentieth-century cottage with a long abandoned back yard, and the work that he and his family had to do to bring a garden to life there. It is the story of the way that the garden became the ground upon which deeper relationships with his family, friends, and neighbors began to blossom and grow.

Written in the gentle, revealing prose for which Benson is acclaimed, this is a lyrical and wise book, beautifully evoking the wonder of planting and seasons, humorously recalling the challenges and the struggles of the labor itself, and carefully observing the simple truths and timeless joys that were there to be found.