As soon as the snow cleared in March, I layered a few square meters of the front lawn with dried leaves, then flat cardboard boxes, then a blue tarp, and finally some stones to hold it all down. I was killing the grass because a yard that did nothing besides look cute ran counter to the feminist principles I was trying to instill in my eleven-year-old daughter, Lia. And it wasn’t even that cute: just three dried-out box shrubs and some lilacs that bloomed for a couple of weeks then receded back into boring. In place of grass I imagined abundance: sugar snap peas springing to the sky, beets purpling the ground, Swiss chard waving its painted leaves. Come August I’d be giving away summer squash and making weekly batches of basil pesto. “Pick some greens for dinner,” I’d say to Lia, who would offer up lettuce still flecked with dirt.