Growing your own food has become wildly popular, due in part to food prices rising, a national interest in organic living, and author Michael Pollan suggesting the White House lawn be partially converted into a vegetable garden.
But what’s the harm in a lawn, and how can you get started?
The EPA, citing Redesigning the American Lawn, gives these moving statistics:
- 20,000,000 acres are planted in residential lawns
- 67,000,000 pounds of synthetic pesticides are used
- 30 to 60 percent of urban fresh water is used for watering lawns.
And that was in 1993. For current inspiration on how to convert your lawn, head to your local bookstore to order
Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn. The book (and accompanying
website), documents artist Fritz Haeg’s lawn-to-garden conversions, includes an essay from Michael Pollan, and provides before and after pictures of homes from Kansas to Los Angeles where owners tore up a lawn and planted a garden. In an excerpt Haeg writes, “The banal lifeless space of uniform grass in front of the house will be replaced with the chaotic abundance of biodiversity.”
If you're lacking a lawn, container gardening can yield successful vegetables in limited space.
Resources
Haeg’s questions for planning an edible garden
How to
donate your fresh vegetables to the local food bank
University of Minnesota resources including What's Wrong With My Plant?
Gardening Project #2: Foster a Native