Eat Your Lawn!

I stumbledupon an article in Time today that grabbed my attention. "The Incredible, Edible Front Lawn" is about a new trend that encourages us to evolve past the wasteful 50's inspired manicured front lawn to a more eco-friendly approach by shifting the edible garden from a small plot in the backyard to your primary landscape focus.


Here is a great quote from Fritz Haeg, the creator of Edible Estates, “The lawn devours resources while it pollutes. It is maniacally groomed with mowers and trimmers powered by the 2 stroke motors responsible for much of our greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrocarbons from mowers react with nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight to produce ozone. To eradicate invading plants it is drugged with pesticides which are then washed into our water supply with sprinklers and hoses dumping our increasingly rare fresh drinking resource down the gutter. Of the 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 17 are detected in groundwater and 23 have the ability to leach into groundwater sources.
The lawn divides and isolates us. It is the buffer of anti-social no-mans-land that we wrap ourselves with, reinforcing the suburban alienation of our sprawling communities. The mono-culture of one plant species covering our neighborhoods from coast to coast celebrates puritanical homogeneity and mindless conformity.”

Check out the Edible Estates website for more info including some amazing examples. how to guides, and resources - good stuff!


Makes sense to me. I wonder what my Homeowner's Association will think?

Being the literal person that I am, I thought they were talking about actually eating the grass growing in a traditional lawn. I was psyched to find such a thing! The organization Plants for an Edible Future has a listing of edible grasses you can grow and cut back in your lawn! Click here for the link.

I'm buying a used riding lawnmower off of Craigslist today and I'm not happy about it! Our yard is too big, grows too fast and, well, I don't want to mow that damn lawn anymore! Eating it just sounds like a better option.