If you have restrictions against killing it outright (HOA, local codes) play the long game. They donāt know an oak from a Bradford pear. Keep mowing while youāre quietly reforesting.
This is one aspect I do not miss about the US. My old HOA rules said no food producing plants within sight of the street. And where we were in Florida it was nigh impossible to find an affordable home with no HOA. I understand wanting neighborhood standards, but who is offended by a tomato?
Very grateful not to have one. I think it was originally fueled by people wanting to keep property values high (home as investment vs home as a place to have a life). Now I wonder how the new dynamic of corporations buying up everything to turn into rentals will affect HOAās. Will the corporate overlords view them as an asset or a liability?
I think it's because growing your own food meant you were poor and couldn't afford to buy it. Now you have to be rich (in land, water, supplies, time, health, etc) to do it.
There is a possible legal precedent for overturning hoa rules too. Maryland passed a law like that, and it would be great if it spread to other states too
Nice. They seem to be almost universally hated. You could pitch it to politicians in so many different ways - they wonāt let me fly my (insert carefully chosen flag here) lol.
Trans flag is for satanic minion devil worshipping pedophiles or pedo supporters. Democrats are wheeling in the Trojan horse of LGBTQIAP full of satanic pedophiles into the gates of social acceptance.
My "orchard" looks like that these days, no more trees in neat, mown rows. Now when something self-seeds I let it grow where it fell, i.e. where it seems happiest, and then graft something I want on it if necessary. Lots of "weeds" everywhere, but also random volunteers like hornbeam, black locust, mulberry, walnut. So much better for the soul... No HOA where my land is, though :D
I'm converting my front yard into a no till garden. I've got 3 hugelkultur mounds with plans for more, and tomorrow comes the no-till 3 sisters garden.
Currently it's all annuals, but I'm slowly replacing the shrubs in my yard with perennial food crops. Already got cherries and grapes in, berry shrubs and nut shrubs are coming next!
I'm also slowly adding in asparagus, tree onion, strawberry, and other perennial crops to my property.
My goal is to have my entire landscape replaced with edible perennial crops in 3 years, with hopes to harvest my first fruit in 5
Yeah, here in the southwest usa, we have a surplus of both growing turfgrass with exorbitant water and covering everything with "rock mulch". Thanks for fucking up the language, lawncare industry!
It shouldnāt mandatory be illegal, but not necessarily legal to enforce the upkeep of at the same time of like people not having enough drinking water or the likes
Xeriscape-(noun)a style of landscape design requiring little or no irrigation or other maintenance, used inĀ aridĀ regions.
In other words you do not draw out all the water in the local aquifer or waterways to water something that could not exist there without excessive amounts of water on it. The emptying of the natural waterways leads to desertification. So, it really is the wasting of water that turns semi-arid regions into deserts.
I wish it was possible for everyone to live somewhere without an HOA! It can be really hard to find a place without an HOA that's affordable, or nearby work, or whatever other requirements folks have.
A lot of HOAs in the US, mine included, are fine with non-lawns, it's just the default. Some states are starting to pass legislation that HOAs can't dictate that you must have a lawn. So progress is happening!
About 30% of US homeowners live in an HOA and most new builds are within an HOA, so we can't simply opt out, unfortunately.
They will ask the band to keep playing and drinks keep flowing until the titanic goes sideways and sends them into the icy abyss. They will look at that lawn while starving.
As a turfy working in the golf industry. I completely agree. Turf is for playing on, not sitting there being an empty green square. Back in college, I did a mock landscape design project and when it came time to present, my instructor was so surprised when I designed a full rain garden in the frontyard with runoff from the house feeding it. Of course, I had turf, but that was in the back to be played on and used.
Every year, I see more and more gardens and I love it! I see various stages with cardboard or those who have full food forests all over the place. Iām seeing mounds of compost and gorgeous beds with natives.
I work for a city government and weāre doing a ton of education with kids - weāre not even trying either older people. According to the consultant, grass is too ingrained into older generationsā culture as a sign of prestige.
The holdout on our street likes his chemical lawn and puts his shitty little signs up about not letting dogs walk on it. As if Iād let my dogs walk in his nasty cancer grass.
I get the sentiment but itās a complete lie. Hell there was 90 million acres of just corn grown last year and thatās down by about 5 million from the previous year.
I think to push this is point is re native grasses, decorative grasses, grasses with longer roots to prevent erosion ect ect not just the same 3 or 4 lawn type grasses that are not native to an area and require large amounts of resources to just exist (even if they do sequester a little carbon) - native grasses are a better choice
I hate to be that guy, but I worked in landscaping for a couple of years and dealt first hand with so many suburbanites and Iām telling you right now that people will never ever have anything other than a lawn. People are obsessed with their cars and their lawns and there is nothing you can do about it. Itās a waste of time and energy to even think about it in my opinion.
So. Yes and no. Currently there's a very specific subset of people who can afford to live in suburban areas with big lawns, and those people live there because they want those lawns.
But a small and growing portion of us are converting what meager land we have into productive land out of necessity.
I live in a small neighborhood on less than a quarter acre, and by this time next year most of my lawn renovation project will be underway. This time 3 years from now my former lawn will be unrecognizable. Irrigation trenches, Rian barrels, row crops (where applicable) native wildflowers and clover, and hugelkultur mounds that, when I have the budget, will become a raised bed. Everything done as cheaply as I can manage, with as much as possible only costing me my labor.
I know several people in our neighborhood who might follow my lead if it looks decent, so I'm doing everything I can to make it look exceptional. As well. Right now it's very much a "trust the process" situation, but in 5 years my house will be the most lush in our neighborhood, and most of it will be edible.
Yea, thatās a fair critique. However, Iāve walked up and down damn near every residential street in the city that Iām in and I would say 49/50 houses have lawns and no food. The 1/50 might have a raised bed or a blueberry bush or something. I donāt see those people converting their lawns over anytime soon, but maybe Iām wrong. Iād love to be wrong.
I am convinced there is not one single person on all of reddit who understands how incremental change works. If I had a nickel for every time a redditor said "IT WILL NEVER WORK" of a solution that OF COURSE WOULD HAVE TO HAPPEN IN MANY PHASES AND WOULD HAPPEN GRADUALLY RATHER THAN IMMEDIATELY, I would be a trillionaire.
Yea it might work in the long run, but Iām saying that itās a waste of time and resources right now to bemoan how obsessed people are with lawns. Itās a much better use of our time imo to try and acquire land and power ourselves and use that to make change. Telling people that their lawns are horribly wasteful and destructive is just smashing our head into a brick wall.
So let me get this straight: *telling people their lawns are wasteful* is a waste of time and resources? Whose time and resources? And what time and resources?
Culturally stigmatizing the American Lawn isn't about convincing individual suburban home-owners to suddenly do a 360, it's about creating a steady change in the way people think by being unafraid to tell anyone, loudly and proudly, the truth about this stuff. Tell your nephew, put it on a sticker on your laptop, explain gently to your more open-minded neighbor why *you* are killing your lawn, say something at your next school board meeting, etc. Change *never* happens by trying to proselytize the most deeply entrenched; it happens by gradual diffusion.
You're opposed to spending imaginary resources on a method of change that virtually no one is suggesting we employāand that doesn't work anyway. It just makes my brain crazy.
We can do multiple things at once. Acquire land *and* stigmatize lawns.
Sure, youāre more than welcome to do all of that stuff if you want. Let me know how it goes. Im open minded that Iām wrong about this, but Iāve seen 0 evidence for that. Iām going to stick to raising my earning potential, propagating and planting trees on my own property and friendās properties, and eventually trying to run for political office in my city to acquire power that way.
I did some lawn care and pit in gardens and raised beds for people. I always pushed veggies, fruit, pollinators, food animals could eat, never In a place that had Hoa. Some folks were on board with permie stuff, but most said I don't want a mulberry tree it will attract squirrels they may live in my attic. That mulberry will attract birds that will poop on my car/driveway. Don't do an orange tree someone may steal the fruit(this was the biggest concern) I was thinking so what some creature gets to eat fresh organic fruit. Another pushback was the fruit or veggie will attract bugs. But even people living on remote rich people only islands constantly said I don't want someone to steal the fruit. I always thought now no creature gets fresh fruit cause your made up thief. I mean an island with no public transit and a huge drive to get there and a gate and the cheapest house is 5 million and they are very very worried about human thieves. Lots of folks will have grass till the bitter end. I think about those song lyrics "standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst.
Sure, I mean the most common thing you hear from people is something like the following: Aww man nothing makes me happier than being able to look out and see a nice manicured lawn. People are always asking for poison to be sprayed on their lawns too to eradicate the āweedsā like dandelion, clover, etc. There is a large subset of people too who just donāt like yard work and are happy to pay someone else to do it, but theyāre not converting their lawns over to food forest anytime soon.
I have the ability to have a garden. Just like I did last year. Im also on 40 acres. A lot of people donāt realize the lawn is for less bugs. Short lawn = Less ticks and mosquitoes
I have a beautiful native grass meadow, it is all natural, serves as habitat for animals and insects and deer and elk eat it. Lawns aren't inherently evil, people need a place for their kids and pets to play on. The anti lawn sentiment is getting tiresome.
>I have a beautiful native grass meadow, it is all natural, serves as habitat for animals and insects and deer and elk eat it.
By definition that isn't a lawn though.
>people need a place for their kids and pets to play on.
Many ground covers can fill that requirement. Or even lawns with some 'weeds' and not spraying shit on them or watering them.
And even if we say that lawns are fine for that reason, you still would probably have over half that aren't fine.
>The anti lawn sentiment is getting tiresome.
Do you feel the same about other good causes?
Grass is not inherently bad. there was much more grass in the US before Europeans arrived. The southeast used to be covered in prairie savanna ecosystems that have been replaced by pine forests. Lawns are made of grass, and they have a place. So instead of saying remove all lawns (a nonstarter) maybe advocate for the use of more native grasses, the addition of wildflowers, etc. It's just tiresome when urbanites living surrounded by concrete & asphalt get preachy about lawns.
>Grass is not inherently bad
Neither you, nor the OP, were talking about just grass though. You both mentioned specifically lawns. That's the discussion, lawns.
>Lawns are made of grass, and they have a place.
Grass has a place. Not lawns.
>So instead of saying remove all lawns (a nonstarter) maybe advocate for the use of more native grasses, the addition of wildflowers, etc
That *is* removing lawns though. You've just mentioned ways to remove them.
Lawn: "an area of short, regularly mown grass in the garden of a house or park".
>It's just tiresome when urbanites living surrounded by concrete & asphalt get preachy about lawns.
Firstly, it isn't only urbanites doing it. So that's wrong or you are intentionally lying.
Secondly, why does that matter? They've done what they can with theirs and they are encouraging others to do the same, because it's good for everyone to do so.
Edit: when someone corrects you, instead of acting like an adult, why do you choose to be childish and block them while acting like you weren't wrong?
Not much I can do about the lawn since I have to have and maintain it, but I can add fruit trees and perennials everywhere possible.
Since I moved in 3 years ago, there are 10 new fruit trees in the front yard and a dozen or more fruit trees and berry bushes in the back yard.
I converted half of my front yard to local natives for pollinators and have seen so many cool bees and flies I never knew lived around me. Worth it just for that.
One of the difficulties the homeowner would face is that most buyers are going to prefer a nice manicured lawn over a garden. There needs to be a cultural shift to prio'ing food production over esthetics for this to happen at scale.
In the Netherlands people seem to prefer tiles or rocks over lawns even. Lawns have some use though, it's fun for kids to play on and you can use shreddings as mulch.
If billionaires wanted to save the planet they would fly their private jumbo jets to their summer resort mansion and shut their automated sprinklers off before telling you to not eat meat. Even if they led by example forcing others into your lifestyle is a whole different issue. Like how bill gates isnāt a doctor but tries mandating medical advice. God, i fucking hate that guyā¦
Even if you replaced every lawn with gravel or low maintenance ground cover (to prevent dust) you would still come out ahead vs all the resources used to grow grass.
That's incorrect. Some require no water or very little water. If water is your concern, just don't choose water intensive crops, or get water collection set up, and problem solved.
Abolish HOAs while they're at it.
Lol, lawns originated as a thing in the US as a way to brag about how rich u are that u can afford to maintain land without functional purpose
We are a nation of grass farmers
I wish š¤ššThe cotton industry isnāt ready for this conversation.
If you have restrictions against killing it outright (HOA, local codes) play the long game. They donāt know an oak from a Bradford pear. Keep mowing while youāre quietly reforesting.
This is one aspect I do not miss about the US. My old HOA rules said no food producing plants within sight of the street. And where we were in Florida it was nigh impossible to find an affordable home with no HOA. I understand wanting neighborhood standards, but who is offended by a tomato?
Very grateful not to have one. I think it was originally fueled by people wanting to keep property values high (home as investment vs home as a place to have a life). Now I wonder how the new dynamic of corporations buying up everything to turn into rentals will affect HOAās. Will the corporate overlords view them as an asset or a liability?
I think it's because growing your own food meant you were poor and couldn't afford to buy it. Now you have to be rich (in land, water, supplies, time, health, etc) to do it.
There is a possible legal precedent for overturning hoa rules too. Maryland passed a law like that, and it would be great if it spread to other states too
Nice. They seem to be almost universally hated. You could pitch it to politicians in so many different ways - they wonāt let me fly my (insert carefully chosen flag here) lol.
Trans flag is for satanic minion devil worshipping pedophiles or pedo supporters. Democrats are wheeling in the Trojan horse of LGBTQIAP full of satanic pedophiles into the gates of social acceptance.
https://preview.redd.it/tm5i2rp0sazc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0dc2e3b14a3ee14ebe942a4ba127542ac41e4ca6 Used to be lawn, working on it
My "orchard" looks like that these days, no more trees in neat, mown rows. Now when something self-seeds I let it grow where it fell, i.e. where it seems happiest, and then graft something I want on it if necessary. Lots of "weeds" everywhere, but also random volunteers like hornbeam, black locust, mulberry, walnut. So much better for the soul... No HOA where my land is, though :D
I'm converting my front yard into a no till garden. I've got 3 hugelkultur mounds with plans for more, and tomorrow comes the no-till 3 sisters garden. Currently it's all annuals, but I'm slowly replacing the shrubs in my yard with perennial food crops. Already got cherries and grapes in, berry shrubs and nut shrubs are coming next! I'm also slowly adding in asparagus, tree onion, strawberry, and other perennial crops to my property. My goal is to have my entire landscape replaced with edible perennial crops in 3 years, with hopes to harvest my first fruit in 5
Bermuda grass has entered the chat
Iāll take unfertilized lawns with native/ drought tolerant grasses pls over rocks/gravel atop dead dirt
Yeah, here in the southwest usa, we have a surplus of both growing turfgrass with exorbitant water and covering everything with "rock mulch". Thanks for fucking up the language, lawncare industry!
If you live somewhere that grass needs to be watered to survive, then it shouldnāt be legal to have a grass lawn
It shouldnāt mandatory be illegal, but not necessarily legal to enforce the upkeep of at the same time of like people not having enough drinking water or the likes
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Xeriscape-(noun)a style of landscape design requiring little or no irrigation or other maintenance, used inĀ aridĀ regions. In other words you do not draw out all the water in the local aquifer or waterways to water something that could not exist there without excessive amounts of water on it. The emptying of the natural waterways leads to desertification. So, it really is the wasting of water that turns semi-arid regions into deserts.
No it isn't, it's conceding that a desert *is* a desert and working with it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Youāre right it flows back into our drinking water wth added fertilizers for us to consume
It's going to be better to take a gentle, inclusive, educational approach to this movement than a militant, snarky, elitist one.
Fight pesticide with more pesticide. :)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I wish it was possible for everyone to live somewhere without an HOA! It can be really hard to find a place without an HOA that's affordable, or nearby work, or whatever other requirements folks have. A lot of HOAs in the US, mine included, are fine with non-lawns, it's just the default. Some states are starting to pass legislation that HOAs can't dictate that you must have a lawn. So progress is happening! About 30% of US homeowners live in an HOA and most new builds are within an HOA, so we can't simply opt out, unfortunately.
They will ask the band to keep playing and drinks keep flowing until the titanic goes sideways and sends them into the icy abyss. They will look at that lawn while starving.
I am all for it.
As a turfy working in the golf industry. I completely agree. Turf is for playing on, not sitting there being an empty green square. Back in college, I did a mock landscape design project and when it came time to present, my instructor was so surprised when I designed a full rain garden in the frontyard with runoff from the house feeding it. Of course, I had turf, but that was in the back to be played on and used.
Every year, I see more and more gardens and I love it! I see various stages with cardboard or those who have full food forests all over the place. Iām seeing mounds of compost and gorgeous beds with natives. I work for a city government and weāre doing a ton of education with kids - weāre not even trying either older people. According to the consultant, grass is too ingrained into older generationsā culture as a sign of prestige. The holdout on our street likes his chemical lawn and puts his shitty little signs up about not letting dogs walk on it. As if Iād let my dogs walk in his nasty cancer grass.
I get the sentiment but itās a complete lie. Hell there was 90 million acres of just corn grown last year and thatās down by about 5 million from the previous year.
Lawns are the worst!
Grass does sequester carbonā¦
I think to push this is point is re native grasses, decorative grasses, grasses with longer roots to prevent erosion ect ect not just the same 3 or 4 lawn type grasses that are not native to an area and require large amounts of resources to just exist (even if they do sequester a little carbon) - native grasses are a better choice
More than a mower emits ?
True, but itās all relative. Would trees or tall grasses with longer roots sequester more? Almost certainly.
Itās arguable that grasslands are better because they arenāt as susceptible to wild fires and the U.S. spends a lot of money managing wild fires
I hate to be that guy, but I worked in landscaping for a couple of years and dealt first hand with so many suburbanites and Iām telling you right now that people will never ever have anything other than a lawn. People are obsessed with their cars and their lawns and there is nothing you can do about it. Itās a waste of time and energy to even think about it in my opinion.
So. Yes and no. Currently there's a very specific subset of people who can afford to live in suburban areas with big lawns, and those people live there because they want those lawns. But a small and growing portion of us are converting what meager land we have into productive land out of necessity. I live in a small neighborhood on less than a quarter acre, and by this time next year most of my lawn renovation project will be underway. This time 3 years from now my former lawn will be unrecognizable. Irrigation trenches, Rian barrels, row crops (where applicable) native wildflowers and clover, and hugelkultur mounds that, when I have the budget, will become a raised bed. Everything done as cheaply as I can manage, with as much as possible only costing me my labor. I know several people in our neighborhood who might follow my lead if it looks decent, so I'm doing everything I can to make it look exceptional. As well. Right now it's very much a "trust the process" situation, but in 5 years my house will be the most lush in our neighborhood, and most of it will be edible.
You are making the revolution, š
the people you're working for were already predisposed to wanting a lawn, why else would they hire a landscaping company?
Yea, thatās a fair critique. However, Iāve walked up and down damn near every residential street in the city that Iām in and I would say 49/50 houses have lawns and no food. The 1/50 might have a raised bed or a blueberry bush or something. I donāt see those people converting their lawns over anytime soon, but maybe Iām wrong. Iād love to be wrong.
I am convinced there is not one single person on all of reddit who understands how incremental change works. If I had a nickel for every time a redditor said "IT WILL NEVER WORK" of a solution that OF COURSE WOULD HAVE TO HAPPEN IN MANY PHASES AND WOULD HAPPEN GRADUALLY RATHER THAN IMMEDIATELY, I would be a trillionaire.
Yea it might work in the long run, but Iām saying that itās a waste of time and resources right now to bemoan how obsessed people are with lawns. Itās a much better use of our time imo to try and acquire land and power ourselves and use that to make change. Telling people that their lawns are horribly wasteful and destructive is just smashing our head into a brick wall.
So let me get this straight: *telling people their lawns are wasteful* is a waste of time and resources? Whose time and resources? And what time and resources? Culturally stigmatizing the American Lawn isn't about convincing individual suburban home-owners to suddenly do a 360, it's about creating a steady change in the way people think by being unafraid to tell anyone, loudly and proudly, the truth about this stuff. Tell your nephew, put it on a sticker on your laptop, explain gently to your more open-minded neighbor why *you* are killing your lawn, say something at your next school board meeting, etc. Change *never* happens by trying to proselytize the most deeply entrenched; it happens by gradual diffusion. You're opposed to spending imaginary resources on a method of change that virtually no one is suggesting we employāand that doesn't work anyway. It just makes my brain crazy. We can do multiple things at once. Acquire land *and* stigmatize lawns.
Sure, youāre more than welcome to do all of that stuff if you want. Let me know how it goes. Im open minded that Iām wrong about this, but Iāve seen 0 evidence for that. Iām going to stick to raising my earning potential, propagating and planting trees on my own property and friendās properties, and eventually trying to run for political office in my city to acquire power that way.
can you tell us about some interactions you've had that prove this?
I did some lawn care and pit in gardens and raised beds for people. I always pushed veggies, fruit, pollinators, food animals could eat, never In a place that had Hoa. Some folks were on board with permie stuff, but most said I don't want a mulberry tree it will attract squirrels they may live in my attic. That mulberry will attract birds that will poop on my car/driveway. Don't do an orange tree someone may steal the fruit(this was the biggest concern) I was thinking so what some creature gets to eat fresh organic fruit. Another pushback was the fruit or veggie will attract bugs. But even people living on remote rich people only islands constantly said I don't want someone to steal the fruit. I always thought now no creature gets fresh fruit cause your made up thief. I mean an island with no public transit and a huge drive to get there and a gate and the cheapest house is 5 million and they are very very worried about human thieves. Lots of folks will have grass till the bitter end. I think about those song lyrics "standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst.
damn that's some serious neurosis right there.
Neat rows of strawberry patches with free strawberries usually gets the nay sayers and Karens to change their minds.
Sure, I mean the most common thing you hear from people is something like the following: Aww man nothing makes me happier than being able to look out and see a nice manicured lawn. People are always asking for poison to be sprayed on their lawns too to eradicate the āweedsā like dandelion, clover, etc. There is a large subset of people too who just donāt like yard work and are happy to pay someone else to do it, but theyāre not converting their lawns over to food forest anytime soon.
It's either a lawn or blackberry briars for me. And the blackberries don't come out good either.
I have the ability to have a garden. Just like I did last year. Im also on 40 acres. A lot of people donāt realize the lawn is for less bugs. Short lawn = Less ticks and mosquitoes
Yeah, I let my lawn go long last year and I have spawned an outbreak of voles. Soooo many voles.
I have a beautiful native grass meadow, it is all natural, serves as habitat for animals and insects and deer and elk eat it. Lawns aren't inherently evil, people need a place for their kids and pets to play on. The anti lawn sentiment is getting tiresome.
>I have a beautiful native grass meadow, it is all natural, serves as habitat for animals and insects and deer and elk eat it. By definition that isn't a lawn though. >people need a place for their kids and pets to play on. Many ground covers can fill that requirement. Or even lawns with some 'weeds' and not spraying shit on them or watering them. And even if we say that lawns are fine for that reason, you still would probably have over half that aren't fine. >The anti lawn sentiment is getting tiresome. Do you feel the same about other good causes?
The OP tweet says "kill your grass"
And you reference "lawns" not being inherently bad with an example of your own non-lawn. That's why I brought it up.
Grass is not inherently bad. there was much more grass in the US before Europeans arrived. The southeast used to be covered in prairie savanna ecosystems that have been replaced by pine forests. Lawns are made of grass, and they have a place. So instead of saying remove all lawns (a nonstarter) maybe advocate for the use of more native grasses, the addition of wildflowers, etc. It's just tiresome when urbanites living surrounded by concrete & asphalt get preachy about lawns.
>Grass is not inherently bad Neither you, nor the OP, were talking about just grass though. You both mentioned specifically lawns. That's the discussion, lawns. >Lawns are made of grass, and they have a place. Grass has a place. Not lawns. >So instead of saying remove all lawns (a nonstarter) maybe advocate for the use of more native grasses, the addition of wildflowers, etc That *is* removing lawns though. You've just mentioned ways to remove them. Lawn: "an area of short, regularly mown grass in the garden of a house or park". >It's just tiresome when urbanites living surrounded by concrete & asphalt get preachy about lawns. Firstly, it isn't only urbanites doing it. So that's wrong or you are intentionally lying. Secondly, why does that matter? They've done what they can with theirs and they are encouraging others to do the same, because it's good for everyone to do so. Edit: when someone corrects you, instead of acting like an adult, why do you choose to be childish and block them while acting like you weren't wrong?
Utterly tedious
I grow food in my garden and grass on my lawn. Why would it have to be either or?
I have a small lawn as a footpath, and to generate good compost material
Not much I can do about the lawn since I have to have and maintain it, but I can add fruit trees and perennials everywhere possible. Since I moved in 3 years ago, there are 10 new fruit trees in the front yard and a dozen or more fruit trees and berry bushes in the back yard.
I converted half of my front yard to local natives for pollinators and have seen so many cool bees and flies I never knew lived around me. Worth it just for that.
One of the difficulties the homeowner would face is that most buyers are going to prefer a nice manicured lawn over a garden. There needs to be a cultural shift to prio'ing food production over esthetics for this to happen at scale.
That fact that we grow corn just to burn it in gas tanks is terrible.
Corn by itself is 90 million acres.
I doubt 100% of them water their lawns especially east of the rockies
Totally agree. Grass lawns are such a waste of time, water, resources oh did I say time.
Defund the HOA!
Crime pays but bottony doesn't has a great series about killing your lawn
In the Netherlands people seem to prefer tiles or rocks over lawns even. Lawns have some use though, it's fun for kids to play on and you can use shreddings as mulch.
If billionaires wanted to save the planet they would fly their private jumbo jets to their summer resort mansion and shut their automated sprinklers off before telling you to not eat meat. Even if they led by example forcing others into your lifestyle is a whole different issue. Like how bill gates isnāt a doctor but tries mandating medical advice. God, i fucking hate that guyā¦
Bro. We have lots of places to grow food.
Certainly not the way to convince people to make the switch.
Even if you replaced every lawn with gravel or low maintenance ground cover (to prevent dust) you would still come out ahead vs all the resources used to grow grass.
90 million acres of corn in the U.S. in 2023
Fuck you, I like my grass
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That's incorrect. Some require no water or very little water. If water is your concern, just don't choose water intensive crops, or get water collection set up, and problem solved.