Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community

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Not every person should run out and become a backyard farmer, but Flores’ "Food Not Lawns" presents practical reasons and methods to use your backyard for both recreation and production.  Consider the following statistic, “58 million Americans spend approximately thirty billion dollars every year to maintain more than twenty-three million acres of lawns….the same-sized plot of land could still have a small lawn for recreation and produce all 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 eighty-one million acres of organic vegetables, all summer long.”

You can find this book at Chelsea Green Publishing Chelsea Green Publishing.

4 thoughts on “Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community”

  1. I love hearing of articles, books etc on this topic. Americans’ obsession with picture-perfect but unused lawns is mind-boggling. It’s especially frustrating in dryer climate zones where excessive watering is needed to keep it lush and green (like here in Colorado).
    Cheers, Susan

  2. I love hearing of articles, books etc on this topic. Americans’ obsession with picture-perfect but unused lawns is mind-boggling. It’s especially frustrating in dryer climate zones where excessive watering is needed to keep it lush and green (like here in Colorado).
    Cheers, Susan

  3. I read a great story about front lawns turned into food gardens in Dwell Magazine. But you should have your soil tested before you plant food. It could be contaminated with pesticides and toxic stuff that people have dumped over the years (like paint or car oil).

  4. I read a great story about front lawns turned into food gardens in Dwell Magazine. But you should have your soil tested before you plant food. It could be contaminated with pesticides and toxic stuff that people have dumped over the years (like paint or car oil).

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