23 MILLION ACRES OF POTENTIAL ORGANIC & SUSTAINABLE GARDENS!

23 MILLION ACRES OF POTENTIAL ORGANIC & SUSTAINABLE GARDENS!

We recently came across the following quite incredible tidbit of information: There are 23 MILLION acres of lawns in the US! Costs: Over 30 BILLION a year, and these lawns are the most toxic parts of the country, sometimes akin in toxicity to “superfund” environmental disaster sites.

"VICTORY LAWNS? What happens when oil really gets expensive, and 3,000-miles strawberries become $30 strawberries? Welcome to Plan B invites Jan Lundberg, one of the most prolific, commonsensical “solutions” writers in the USA Today. Created in 1969 and defended by local residents, Berkeley's People's Park has become a model for U.S. cities. On the 4th of July, Lundberg planted corn and beans there, while marveling at “the healthy state of fruit trees, berry bushes, vegetables, and herbs.”

Driveways and parking lots are easy to remove, he notes. And “Rooftop gardens are advisable if water is available.” [Culture Change Letter #104 July 8/05]

Heather Coburn picks up this theme in her book, 'Food Not Lawns'. 'More than 58 million Americans spend at least $30 billion every year to maintain over 23 million acres of lawn. That's an average of over a third of an acre and $517 each,' she reveals. 'The same size plot of land could still have a small lawn for recreation, plus produce all of the vegetables needed to feed a family of six. 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.'

For apartment dwellers, 'An amazing amount of produce can be grown in containers or window boxes, especially greens like lettuce,' the Sierra Club's 'Mr. Green' Bob Schildgen suggests. To promote peaceful “perpetual salads” instead of perpetual war just snip some leaves and let the plant grow back. [Sierra Nov-Dec/06]

In terms of labor, fuel, and poisons, lawns are bigger than industrial agricultural sector in the United States. American lawns use 10-times as much toxic chemicals per acre as industrial farmland, poisoning playing children and downstream groundwater, and making them tricky to convert for veggie growing unless allowed to lie fallow for a few years. In the meantime, if pesticides are a problem, make some “raised bed” sandboxes filled with clean soil.

Now is a good time to park the power mower, which excretes the same pollutants in an hour as a car driven 350 miles.

“Let's turn our cities into gardens,” suggests Nick Routeledge in the Whiteaker Community Newsletter. “Right now is the time. We are the ones we've been waiting for.”


But i fact "'More than 58 million Americans spend at least $30 billion every year to maintain over 23 million acres of lawn. That's an average of over a third of an acre and $517 each,' she reveals. 'The same size plot of land could still have a small lawn for recreation, plus produce all of the vegetables needed to feed a family of six"... that's just not true. Over a third of an acre is about 15,000 square feet. Gardened optimally and real intensively using the "Edible Ecosystem" approach, which is like "Companion Planting" on steroids, 15,000 square feet is enough land to feed 150 people. And even if you take a more relaxed approach, it's still enough to feed 50 people. Now, if you truly think of it, the very idea that 58 Million people are stupid enough to grow ~grass~ instead of food, at the same time they are dying of cancer, cardio-vascular and other degenerative diseases which are totally linked to the abysmal quality of what they eat, is ~absolutely amazing~.

In fact... "An English vegetable garden can produce 8 tons an acre! During World War II, 40% of Britain's food and vegetables were derived from some 300,000 acres of home vegetable gardens and community plots. The return of urban households to vegetable gardening in cities like Vancouver, British Columbia, is one of the biggest, quietest and most transformative revolutions currently underway."

And this is to say nothing of what happened in Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union FORCED the communist authorities to encourage individual gardens, which could only be organic, since no chemicals and oil were available anymore. Today, because of that, Cubans are practically the best-fed people on the planet, which is truly an amazing thought, considering what their diet was 20 years ago (answer: Even worse than the SAD [Standard American Diet] way of eating).

"The suburban family farmer is the savior of the world," Bill Mollison [the well-known originator of the 'permaculture' concept] believes. Anyone can join! While returning some 14,500 pesticide-soaked golf courses in the United States to safe food production, many of the nation's 700,000 athletic grounds could be used in part or completely to grow food. [Front Porch News May/00]

“If we truly feel committed to treating the earth and each other with equality and respect, the first place to show it is by how we treat the land we live on. It is time to grow food, not lawns!” Deborah Coburn urges. “The reasons include reducing pollution, improving the quality of your diet, increasing local food security, and beautifying your surroundings, as well as building community and improving your mental and physical health. You will save money and enhance your connection with the earth and with your family.”

What about introducing school playground gardens to kids? “If we can change our land-use philosophy from one of ownership and control to one of sharing and cooperation, we can renew our connection with the Earth and each other, and thus benefit through increased physical and mental health, an improved natural environment, and stronger local communities,” Coburn extols. In other words: “Use Permaculture to make peace real.” [Front Porch News May/00; Food Not Lawns; Discover Magazine July/03; Global Warming Crisis Council in Aug/03]"

What this all demonstrates is that there is clear a nascent but increasingly vocal movement toward a completely different approach to the way we eat and the way we relate to the land.

The reward in participating to this true "Renaissance" are manifold in terms of health and well-being. Here at optimalgardens.blogspot.com, we endeavor to give you the tools to fully participate to this new revolution. Team up with other like-minded people, and start *growing* what you eat. If you live in or around Los Angeles, you are in luck, both from a climate point of view, and because you are not alone.

But if you live anywhere else, feel free to use all the materials and data published here to start your own grass-roots local team! Optimal Gardening is the way to go!

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