Serious Green: Turn Your Lawn Into an Edible Garden
Photograph by Ed Morris & Curtis Hamilton from Edible Estates
By now it's pretty obvious that pesticides have a negative impact on our environment and a negative impact on our bodies. Maybe you already make an effort to buy organic food and cosmetics without chemicals, but have you thought about the impact of chemicals that you are applying to your lawn?
There's no denying that Americans have a love affair with their lawns. Houses, each with their own plot of green, green grass, are an indelible image of American suburbia. However, by demanding that our lawns stay green and spot-free year round, we are collectively doing some serious damage.
When we put pesticides onto our lawns they run off into sewers, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Consequently, we end up drinking pesticides in our water, breathing them in our air, or (if you're a kid or a fun-loving adult) rolling around in pesticides when you take a spin down a hill and then maybe getting a rash. Trust me—it happened at my college when the university got a little over-enthusiastic about keeping the center of campus green. Besides the negative impact of pesticides, more water is used on household lawns every year in the US than on corn or wheat crops. With widespread water shortages in many cities around the US, our idea about what constitutes a lawn is going to have to change.
A great, 27-minute long documentary Gimme Green goes into these issues in more depth. You can watch the trailer here.
To reduce pesticides you can learn to love dandelions or instead, rip up that turf and plant some veggies in its place. Of course, there are fake lawn alternatives and options such as native grasses, groundcover, or clover. But doesn't covering your lawn in a different type of green just perpetuate the idea that a flat green plane is what we as Americans must have in our front yards? By planting edibles, you'll having something in your front yard that is beautiful, does not require mowing, and that you can munch on!
If you're not ready to chuck your turf for a full-on edible landscape, you can start with small changes. Think about replacing a flowering bush with a blueberry bush or a small corner patch of grass with some herbs. Two great resources to get you started are Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community and Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn.
If you're worried that your neighbors might be offended by the sight of your newly bountiful lawn, I'm sure they'll be won over with a gift of the most local tomatoes (or blueberries or squash or cucumbers) of all: the ones that come from your own front yard.
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16 Comments:
If only my HOA would allow :(
Seina at 11:44AM on 07/15/09
that's one beautiful garden
_greenbean at 11:47AM on 07/15/09
your HOA wont allow it?? thats crazy.
engmcmuffin at 11:52AM on 07/15/09
I wish my family did this when I was growing up in suburban NJ! Admittedly, I liked our lawn, but my most vivid lawn-related memories mostly have to do with...being woken up in the morning by the buzzing sound of landscapers taming the grass.
Robyn Lee at 11:53AM on 07/15/09
If people didn't cut their lawns so short, they'd have a greener lawn with much less effort.
Yes, turning your front lawn into a veggie garden has been a great idea since the great war; my dad tells me about how my grandfather turned his front lawn in London into the most fantastic cabbage garden in the city, much to the neighbours' dismay. But they had cabbage to eat when other people were on restricted rations.
But I can see MY neighbours taking issue with it, in fact my wife would take issue with it, since we have a big veggie garden in the back, and still lots of lawn.
So to care for your lawn, never take more than a third of the length of the blade of grass. You'll leave a larger surface area for photosynthesis and water absorption. Your grass will stay greener and lusher even into the hot dry months.
As for pesticides, here are some natural pesticide recipes using ingredients from your own garden: http://www.spec.bc.ca/pesticides/recipes.php
Don't breathe in the rhubarb spray, it'll kill ya!
kevster at 12:26PM on 07/15/09
I live in a condo, so I'm a little short on space to garden. I'm playing around with the idea of turning the flowerbed in front of my unit into a vegetable garden. I've started by planting basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, eggplant and a tomato 'bush'.
My next project is to turn it into a modified square-foot garden - the bed is almost two feet deep, half a square. I thought of it too late for spring, I'll see what I can do next year.
CondoGarden at 12:44PM on 07/15/09
@kevster - Awsome resource on the natural pesticides; thanks muchly! :D
hungrychristel at 1:27PM on 07/15/09
I LOVE THIS ARTICLE! This issue is near and dear to my heart.
I realize this article is food related, of course, but if you have ample vegetable garden in the backyard, then native perennials, shrubs and groundcovers can be used in the front instead of turf grass. By using turf alternatives, ecosystems are created for the critters that were ousted when the house was first built. By using native plant material, pesticides of any type are virtually eliminated from the equation. By using edible plants, the land is being used so much more efficiently! (And remember, most non-invasive herbs make for beautiful groundcovers and annuals).
Happy gardening everyone!
Hobsy at 1:27PM on 07/15/09
I live in Texas so I have yet to run out of backyard veggie garden space but my HOA bugs me about wanting to plant privacy bushes in front of my bedroom window so I doubt they'd let me turn the whole thing over to make veggies.
Houston sucks for produce too :( At least my Crenshaw melons are finally ripening so I'll post my first bit of food porn in the next week or so :D
Seina at 1:32PM on 07/15/09
Here in Seattle, people can now garden in the planting strip between the street and sidewalk (previously required a $225 permit) - it's been very exciting to see vegetable patches springing up in those spaces all over the city! And so hard, sometimes, to resist the siren call of planting strip strawberries....
Judes at 1:38PM on 07/15/09
At home in upstate NY we have a pretty massive backyard, although very little of it is flat. My veggie garden is up there, about 40x15. It's failing due to the horrendous weather we've been having, and honestly, the all-day sunshine is in the front.
We've been thinking of taking the veggies forward. No neighbors could possibly mind, and if they did I wouldn't care. We're lazy with lawncare ("lawncare" to us means mowing every two weeks and never watering), so actually they may prefer it!
I'm excited to check out these links! Thanks!
missbhavens at 1:42PM on 07/15/09
As far as the HOA (I think thats housing authority) comments, I would love to see someone take this to court on principle. The thought sickens me that a couple stiffs would tell you not to grow your own food "in this economy" I hate that saying but it’s fairly applicable here. I don't think any HOA would want the stain of forbidding someone to grow food when many of us are starting to not be able to afford fresh food if we have to fill up our gas tank within the same week. Should we keep a green lawn and go on food stamps instead?...Oye!
-Just my thought. I would do it anyway, but I'm a rebel ;-)
itsmdorsey at 1:55PM on 07/15/09
It's a great idea for efficiently using the land and water, but I worry about people traipsing into my lawn and picking "free" veggies and fruit. My coworker has this problem at his place. The front lawn is filled with fruit trees and while he doesn't mind if people ask to pick fruit, he's seen people just walk onto his lawn and pick fruit (sometimes filling bags). It's incredibly rude, outright theft and he's considering removing the trees for that reason for security reasons.
AnnieNT at 2:11PM on 07/15/09
This is a great idea... and, while I don't speak from personal experience (no front yard for this Brooklynite), I say so with some first hand understanding. That garden pictured at the top of this page--that's the edible garden my friend and biz/writing partner, Michelle, and her family planted with Fritz Haag on their former property (they've since sold that house to relocate to Bklyn).
I've eaten from that garden! Even helped plant (a little bit!). It was an amazing project that yielded delicious fresh food and a life changing experience for Michelle, her husband and their kid.
Michelle is on vacation--which is why she's not commenting herself!--but she's done a lot of writing on how being part of Edible Estates has informed her and her family's relationship with food and the environment. Check out posts on our site, www.ChowMama.com, that come up when you search "edible estates":
http://www.chowmama.com/?s=edible+estates&x=0&y=0
Hope this inspires some to take the plunge. It's worth it!!
ChowMamaStacie at 2:35PM on 07/15/09
@itsmdorsey -- HOA stands for "home owners' association." They're a neighbor-run or company-run group that enforces rules in a neighborhood to ensure consistency and cleanliness and - so the theory goes - retain home values. Some HOAs regulate things like landscaping and communal garden areas, and others provide for pools and tennis courts, etc. When people buy in HOA-overseen areas, they sign a contract that states they will uphold those rules - and pay dues so others can enforce those rules - so a court case probably isn't going to do much. In Texas, an HOA can foreclose on your house for non-payment of dues and fines - like the ones you would get for planting veggies in your front lawn. Don't like the rules? Don't buy in those neighborhoods.
So that's why I don't live there and can enjoy dandelions, natural grasses, and a pesticide-free lawn.
pookywookyster at 4:54PM on 07/15/09
Where I live, it is pretty common for people to turn in their front and backyards into vegetable gardens particularly in very diverse neighbourhoods. It used to be something only old people did but now it seems to be cropping up more and more amongst all ages and backgrouds. Examples of guerilla gardening are all over the place as well.
liverwurstontoast at 11:39PM on 07/15/09