Guest Author - Alegra bartzat

Let's start with some facts. Did you know that lawns cover over 40 million acres of the United States? did you know that the United States spends more than $30 billion annually in caring for those 40 million acres?

We love the lawn. It's a national pastime, cutting, fertilizing, ad pruning those lawns into perfect patches of grass. But yet, we also spend almost 240 gallons of water per person per day in the summer to upkeep our green pride. And when it rains, an almost equal volume of chemical fertilizers go washing into our water system, disrupting the delicate balance of streams, rivers, lakes, bays, and oceans.

We maintain our little corner of the world with Puritan dedication: so our children can play on them, so we can admire them, so our neighbors will envy them. But waht's to envy? At what point in histroy has anyone ever spent so much time, money and limited natural resources invested in seomthing that is thrown away. I mean what do we do with the bags and bags of lawn clippings? Do we sell it? Feed it to our hroses? Compost it and put it back on our yards? Most people bag it up and send it away with the garbage men, using yet more fossil fuels just to haul those millions of pounds of blades to the dump.

Are you ready to give up the patch of grass for seomthing taht requires less work, less reources, and will even make your populatiry soar? Think about turning your yard into a garden. Though your nieghbors may look twice when passing your hosue if you decide to go this route, a garden yard can be a beautiful thing, in many ways. Besides the variety of color and appearance in a boutniful garden, it will produce an abundance of foods.

With just a few hundred square feet (think 20 feet by 40 feet as plenty big, and ap retty average sized yard), you can pack in a vegeatable garden with over 100 kinds of vegetables, herbs, and even some fruits!

The harvest will inspire you begin canning, preserving, and cooking. But even then you probably wouldn't be bale to use it all up. So you'll begin to give it away, making your neighbors your friends and your neighborhood a community.

YOu can also chalk it up to a reduction in global warming emmissions, as you and your neighbors begin eating food grown at your doors steps, you will reduce the milage of food to plate, which is upwards of 1000 miles per item in this country. If you don't have yard, consider a few pots of lettuce on your porch, patio, or windowsill. It is so much tastier when it's picked fresh just minutes before you eat it. And even those yard owners who may not be able to take the plunge of digging up all that sod, a corner of sunny yard can provide ample return with just a bit of trowling.

Bon appetite!