The lawns in the United States consume around 270 billion gallons of water a week – enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables, all summer long.
Food Not Lawns is an organization dedicated to encouraging and supporting people in replacing their lawns with edible flowers, fruits, vegetables, and other useful plants. “Or,” they suggest, “what about turning your whole yard into an organic food garden and using a local park, school or natural area for recreation?”
We already use herbs – such as tricolour sage, for example – in our plantings. Why not introduce more edible plants next spring? View my suggestions for planting attractive edibles.
Food Not Lawns says:
Lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland. These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects.
Scary. And it’s all just about changing our land-use philosophy from one of ownership and control to one of sharing and cooperation. And isn’t that something we were supposed to learn in kindergarten?
Via Dirt by Amy Stewart.
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