If you would like to know how to turn you yard into a garden and your neighborhood into a community, Food Not Lawns is the subversive guerrilla gardening book with a very radical and very political outlook that comes as a fresh view on the modern lawn.
Sustainability goes deep into the necessities of our country, and it starts with foreign oil, but from there it branches out until if finally hits us right in the stomach, with one of the vital essentials for human survival, food.
Once, not so long ago, it was common in this country to do what one had to do, to make sure that our children had food on the plate, even if the ration stamps were not enough. That was a time when our country could be easily confused with the ideals of a communist country. And what is wrong with being community-aware? Absolutely nothing is wrong with it.
Community efforts like painting parties or house building parties are not so far in our nations past, as it was just two generations ago that those kinds of community actions were commonplace, and we even called it help thy neighbor.
What keeps us from taking action on a community level for a global change that is desperately needed? Only ourselves.
Our lawns are a political statement of our independence from slavery and monarchy, but what about dedication to the planet we live on? The lawn could be a political statement for a more sustainable form of food production, by doing it ourselves, while thinking globally, yes, but acting locally.
We are all in this together, and while food sources come from outside the city, they generate tons of CO2 emissions each day, just to arrive at our local supermarkets, then from the market to our homes, even more greenhouse gases from our own cars, even if they are running off of CO2 neutral fuel sources like Biodiesel.
We need to stop the emission of CO2 all together, and produce our food sources as locally as possible, to revert the damage our blind industrialism and over-consumption has caused to the ozone layer.
Taking out the lawn and replacing it with an ecologically friendly source of herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables, will provide more than our family alone can eat, and the residents in our neighborhood will approach us with offers to take the excess into their own homes.
What about using those barren plots of land where nobody even built a house yet? Those empty lots that are still waiting to be developed can quickly become community kitchen gardens.
Are there people in your community that enjoy gardening? Make a plan with them, and together, you can start cultivating, little by little, a piece here and there, until people start to see what you are doing, as long as you make it clear WHY, sooner or later, more people will be interested, and a project is born.
This 344-page paperback, written by Heather C. Flores, published by Chelsea Green in October of 2006, measuring 9.9 x 8 x 0.9, ships at 1.6 pounds.
Food Not Lawns is a radical thinking book for those looking for a more sustainable way of life, in contempt of the political powers that be, pushing a community active approach to sustainable, local food sources that looks at consumption with a refreshing viewpoint we havent seen in this country since the second great war.
