What this is
backyard.bio is a small nature journal. We publish two kinds of writing.
Issues are themed collections of three or four pieces, on a single question, designed to be read in order. They come out three or four times a year — the cadence of an actual journal, not a feed. So far we've published The Oak Question and The Balcony Question; A Child's First Field Guide is coming this summer.
Field Notes are shorter, more frequent pieces — a thing seen this week, a question worth thinking about, a recommendation worth passing along. We publish two or three a week. Most read in five minutes.
If you want both, the easiest way is to subscribe to the weekly letter. One email on Sunday, with the latest Issue piece, two Field Notes, and one specific thing to try in your own patch that week. Free, and our intention is to keep it that way.
Who we are
backyard.bio is a small editorial collective — a few writers, a designer, an editor. We sign our pieces "the editors" because the perspective is editorial, not personal: the publication has a voice, and the voice is bigger than any one of us. None of us are full-time naturalists. We're people who got pulled in by the work of Doug Tallamy, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Bernd Heinrich, David Haskell, and others, and who wanted to make something for everyone else who got pulled in too.
We are not a startup. We are not VC-backed. We don't run ads, and we don't sell email addresses. The publication exists because we think it should, and we cover the costs ourselves. If at some point we can't, we'll be honest about that.
What we believe
We believe that the loss of insect biomass over the last fifty years is one of the under-told environmental stories of our lifetimes, and that the single most effective response any individual can mount is to fill their patch with native plants. We believe that a yard is a patch, a balcony is a patch, a windowsill is a patch, and a strip of dirt around a city tree is a patch — all of them count, in proportion to their size. We believe that the practice of paying close attention to a small piece of ground over time is genuinely good for the people who do it, and that this is not separate from its being good for the land.
We believe in being honest about what we don't know, citing real sources, paraphrasing rather than quoting at length, and writing in a voice that doesn't lecture, panic, or sell. We try to take the reader seriously.
The Wild Patch Fund
Alongside the publication, we run a small grant program called The Wild Patch Fund. It's a way to put native plants into the hands of schools that don't have the budget for them — ecology classrooms, school gardens, after-school programs, that kind of thing. 100% of donated funds go to the schools as plant grants. The publication and the Fund are kept separately accountable; this site doesn't profit from donations.
Reach us
We answer letters.
If something we wrote landed wrong, or you have a question, or you saw something on your patch this morning that you want to tell someone about — write to us. We're a small team, but we read every letter, and we reply to most of them.
hello@backyard.bio