Kiss Your Grass Goodbye!

Victory Gardens an Idea Whose Time Has Come—Again

By Nancy Jacques, 5-04-06

Ahhh, it’s May. Which reminds me of how growing grass and fighting to keep it green in the West is as logical as cultivating sage in swamps of Mississippi.

I think Cristina Milesi would agree. She went looking for data on how much of this country’s terrain is decked out unnaturally in close-cropped green but found nothing. So, by using the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Land Cover Database and NASA’s satellite information, Cristina and fellow researchers, beginning in 2003, painstakingly extrapolated from all developed areas in the nation a ratio of impervious surfaces (rooftops, asphalt) to open land and conservatively estimates three times more lawn acreage than irrigated corn in the U.S. At 128,000 kilometers, lawn ranks as the number one irrigated crop in America.

Looking for an upside, I suppose, Milesi estimates lawns could be a carbon sink, little green straws sucking out of the air the stuff causing global warming, but only if people leave grass clippings to decompose on all lawn surfaces including golf courses, parkways and other commercial and public places. Then U.S. turf could ideally store about 16.7 teragrams (18.2 million tons) of carbon per year. A small dent in the 1.4 billion tons of carbon emissions we produce annually.

My immediate response to her research: Socially, lawns make sense if you’re a sheep. Ecologically, how about if we drive less, get better gas mileage, clean up power plants and plant higher quality carbon sinkers, like trees and shrubs?

But then I thought beyond the obvious of species type and global warming, or lawn-growing in drought-stricken deserts, to more subtle connections contemporary problems have to grass. Double entendre intended, and not because I’ve been smoking the stuff, links between lawns and food supply and safety, and war, become solid if you look back a little way in history and then forward at our energy problems. It confirms: Grass as decoration or ground cover should go the way of bustles and jodhpurs.

Picture 1942. You’re hungry and news isn’t good. Milk, butter, cheese, eggs, sugar, coffee, meats and canned goods are being rationed, along with gasoline. With shortages in the work force on top of it all, forget munching on fruits and vegetables. And never mind thinking you’ll sneak off for a Big Mac.

Now picture luscious ripe red tomatoes drooping off rooftops and balconies of apartments from Los Angeles to New York. In residential front and backyards, vacant lots, parks and plazas spy sweet peas, cukes, squash and watermelons. Victory Gardens. During WWII, Americans joined together to feed everyone through community self-reliance.

More than twenty million Victory Gardens were planted during WWII, by nearly one-half the adult population not serving overseas. Gardens were planned and planted cooperatively, providing a variety of local produce that was eaten fresh or canned and then shared throughout the community and with the troops.

Victory gardens weren’t romantic earth-muffin notions three generations ago, and they aren’t today. It’s time to re-seed the victory garden movement the Greatest Generation cultivated because we’re fighting today over the same fuel that fired up much of the conflict in the world 60 years ago. We haven’t planned well, learning from past lessons or from warnings of dwindling oil supplies. We haven’t diversified energy sources well enough or thought much about our oil-dependent food networks that are increasingly vulnerable at all levels of production and distribution. We just keep eating.

Seventeen percent of this nation’s petroleum consumption is dedicated to on-the-farm food production. Add on processing, packaging, refrigeration and transport of edibles and food takes a big bite out of affordable oil supplies.Domestic food as basic as lettuce we could grow in front yards most of the year, and green houses in winter, travels up to 3,000 miles from field to table.

This doesn’t factor in our ever-expanding international appetites. According to Worldwatch Institute, we’re eating food requiring up to 36 times more energy to produce and transport than is provided by those morsels in calories consumed.

I won’t deny eating grapes from Chile in February is nice, but the real costs of our food production aren’t factored into the prices we pay. That doesn’t mean the bill for the balance won’t come due.

Community food security requires planning. Spring is the time to begin, and part of any plan should be helping to expunge production of the largest inedible irrigated crop in the nation. Companion planting of vegetables, flowers, herbs and fruit provides long growing seasons, healthy soil, reduced water use, attractive color and texture, high carbon sink – and food. Hard to say that about grass.

Oh, you say your Homeowner’s Association demands lawn? Grow a dollop. If more is required change the rules. The West isn’t Mayberry RFD. It’s Tombstone. And we’ve got challenges to face the Earp boys never dreamed of.

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