Eat Your Yard
On re-thinking lawns as an act of earth care.
Whether we know it or not, the omnipresent suburban lawn is emulating European aristocracy. The first lawns were status symbols of 17th and 18th century royalty, including Louis the XIV, who dubbed his shorn green space tapis vert, or green carpet, making it a sign of outdoor luxury. The rich followed suit, first having their grass cut using hungry livestock, and then, when that became too messy, deciding that having servants crouching down using shears to trim the monocotyledonous plants fitted their display of wealth a little better.
Americans caught on when Thomas Jefferson, a grower aficionado, became enamored with these green carpets upon seeing them in France, and decided to model his Monticello property after these lawns. George Washington did the same with Mount Vernon, and the rest, as one might say, is history.
I used to have a more physical response when I would see huge, green swaths of lawn, short as velvet; a sort of dry-heaving reaction at what I saw as an utterly stupid use of a valuable resource. I have toned down my response since then (aw, my twenties!), but I still feel, at my core, the same; that lawns, especially in dry places like desert climates where it can take gallons of fresh water and fertilizer to turn grass into that desired shade of green, are a gross display of privilege, and should be turned into something more useful.
We are back in Illinois, going back and forth between my parents’ house and friends’ farms. Alex and I are both busy this week helping on other friends’ farms (everyone needs help this time of year, after all!) while we get ready for our move for the season. In between helping friends, dealing with our equipment, and fixing our box truck (which we need to help us move), I have been focused on helping my parents turn some of their lawn into a food garden. I’d always helped with growing food in their box planters (previously used for flowers), but now that we have been here on and off again this month, I have been able to examine the potential in their green square of space.
My parents do not have a big yard, but the soil underneath these grass blades has the ability to grow some big amounts of food. I also am using it as an opportunity to test my new skillset as a Certified Permaculture Designer, and seeing what I can do in a small space. Since I am starting so late, and with our move coming up, along with my permaculture design project I am already working on for our next place, it might take some time, but I know their blank canvas of a yard has the ability to not just be a monoculture of Kentucky bluegrass.
My parents are not completely sold on my idea to cover every inch of their lawn with food (I am letting them warm up to the idea and starting small). However, I am taking baby steps; I know that the aesthetic of lawns are ingrained in people as what “presentable” looks like. At our old rental property at Casey farm, it was important to the organizations in charge that we had neatly mowed places, as to not look too “messy” and “weedy”. Even places where I would have preferred prairie restoration, our overseers were more concerned with optics, and preferred many of our areas, especially out front, to look like a velvety smooth lawn. (They also insisted on the first few years to have our fallen leaves bagged and trucked away, until I finally begged them to just leave the leaves. Leaves on the ground are important insect habitat for many beneficial bugs, including fireflies, and it drove me crazy as a holistic farmer to not have that happen at our farm, even if it didn’t look as tidy and manicured as they wanted).
I clearly think that soil is far too useful to be wasted on something so frivolous as a lawn, but I understand people want something pleasing to the eye. Prairie restoration or food gardens can be simply done and are not too difficult, especially if you start small (here are some ideas about how to actually replace that lawn with food), and can also be beautiful. And if you aren’t into the fallen leaves’ look in the fall (too much brown?), just think of the bioluminescent lightshow you are going to get in July.
If you do have a lawn and don’t really want to remove it, a few tips:
*Try a no-mow spring. Those dandelions and violets coming up are some of the first food for eager bees, who are starving after a long winter. So try your best to not mow as long as you can when spring starts.
*Do not collect grass clippings if you are mowing. Just leave them, since they create better carbon sinks out of yards when you do.
*Maybe this is obvious advice coming from an organic farmer, but: please do not spray herbicides and pesticides on your lawn. Too many beneficial bugs get harmed in the process, along with poison leaking into runoff.
*Leave those leaves. The impending insect apocalypse is something that I think about on a regular basis, and leaving leaves on the ground gives shelter, food and a microbial-rich environment for critters of all kinds.
*Grow a small patch of food, even if it is a small grower box, and expand from there.
On the Road:
Back in Illinois…I suppose this “on the road” section is going to become “on the farm” soon, as we are moving to Wisconsin, at least for the year! I will explain details soon, but short version: we will be renting a farmhouse in an intentional community for the season where there is farmland available to be able to start a farm—basically, starting small, and taking it from there. We are feeling kind of chaotic, since there is a lot to do before this move, and we made the final decision to move there kind of down to the wire. We made this decision after we—long story—had turned down a few long-term opportunities that I badly wanted, but Alex felt unsure about at the time. Part of me feels like starting a farm from scratch sounds kind of insane, especially since we had turned down some opportunities where the infrastructure was at least half-way there, but Alex was not ready to start again a year ago, and was scared about putting a bunch of money into farming our own business and going into debt again, and, sometimes, timing just works out like this. Anyway, I am trying to take a Buddhist approach and to live in the present, and not in the past or the future, even if I am periodically waking up in the middle of the night wondering if we are making mistake after mistake in our lives. (It’s ok though, really, I’m fine!!). I will give more details about all of this in my next newsletter, but right now I am just trying to not to be nervous about everything!
From the Tiny Kitchen:
I have been harvesting nettles for spring soup, which I make with stinging nettles, spring onions or chives, garlic, potatoes and carrots and bone broth or stock. I usually put in herbs like thyme or oregano. Sorrel is also an excellent ingredient, since I like the lemony flavor and it is another perennial that comes up at the same time as nettles. Other than that, I have been trying to come up with more asparagus recipes, plus reading a Moroccan food cookbook that is inspiring me to come up with more recipes that are savory but have lots of cinnamon and cardamom. I have also been getting excited about planting again and cooking in a real kitchen with a real oven and actual counter space…all very exciting stuff!
**I will be taking next Monday off, since we will be in moving hell next week (just kidding, it won’t be that bad, right?), but will return the following Monday (the 6th), when we will be in our new home!**