Saturday, May 16, 2009

An Edible Front Yard

After my Earth Day rant I’m sure no one would expect to hear me talking about this, but it just makes since, an edible front lawn.  I’m not apposed to living healthy and making the world a better place to live, I was just tired of hearing all the “green” talk and yes some of it seems to be nonsense.  But, then I stumbled across this article on Edible Estates and it just makes sense.  The concept is to replace the manicured front lawn with a vegetable garden.  If your going to waste water on the front lawn to look pretty why not have it grow vegetables to feed your family and friends.  Vegetable gardens can be pretty and productive.

In Las Vegas I love having a yard where my kids can play barefoot and not burn their feet on the hot concrete.  I love to be able to have a spontaneous picnic whenever I please on our lawn.  I do however see the kids spending less and less time on the grass as they get older. 

In Las Vegas it takes a lot of water to have a front lawn.  I am aware that I live in a desert and I should conserve water. I do try, I have a toilet that has two flush options, half or whole flush.  There is always a conversation about the toilet whenever we have company over and our son likes to tell us if he is going to have to use the whole flush before is goes to the bathroom.  We have the low flow showerheads and I would love to have a new water saving washing machine but our old one still works.  The lawn is one thing I thought I couldn’t give up until I heard about the edible front lawn.  I’m not saying I’m digging up my lawn tomorrow, but it does make a lot of sense.  Maybe one of these days whenever I figure out gardening in Las Vegas I’ll be more serious about it.  In the meantime I’ve been browsing some cool layouts.  Here is my favorite, it’s called the pizza garden:

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2 comments:

Eliza said...

I love it! What a fantastic idea. IF I could get things to grow better, I'd totally do more gardening.

Smart Helm said...

There certainly has to be a balance in the yard. Who wants to play ball in a tomato plant? You would come back smelling very ICKY!

:-)