For a writing assignment, Manny Howard turns his Brooklyn backyard into a small farm with plans to live off the harvest for one month-he recounts his experiences in the book My Empire of Dirt. This path is not a smooth and easy one, though our hero seems to think it will be as he sets out. Along the way Manny Howard comes up with a wide array of odd and often very optimistic ideas about what farming is and how best to raise chickens, rabbits, fish, ducks, and a large number of plants. Like all new gardeners he discovers that…