A New Kind of Lawn Care

I think I tweeted this, but I wanted to elaborate on it so here's the post.  Earth Eats tweeted an article from treehugger.com about lawns in America.  The tweet said, "There is an estimated 50,000 square miles of lawns in U.S. Think of all the gardens that could be!"  So I clicked on the link and read the article. 


The article is titled, "What if Farmers Made House Calls?" It talks about a new veture in some areas where farmers are doing just that.  Instead of having a lawn care service come to your house and spray toxins on your yard to make it look green, you have a service that plants and cares for your garden.  Cool concept, right?  I read once how unnatural American lawns actually are.  They're based on Britsh gardens, but those apparently, have clover and more weeds mixed in.  The idea that we should have these lush green, weed free, single grass kinds of ground cover just doesn't really work.  As can be seen from how much effort we, as a country, put into trying to maintain this ideal lawn.  The herbicides to keep out weeds, the pesticides to keep off pests, watering and mowing, all so that we can have a pretty green lawn that most of us don't even use.  But if we put it go use...to grow food...all of a sudden that work doesn't seem to be all for show.  I'm not thinking about tillig under my front yard (although that's a lot of full sun real estate going to waste!) but I am going to add some bigger beds in my backyard.  I'd LOVE to have a farmer come to my house once a week and do it all for me, but until something like that comes to Canton, OH, I think I'm on my own!  And that's actually fine with me.  I'm having so much fun learning how to be a backyard farmer and it gives me such a sense of satisfaction when I weed and work in my garden.  I watched my mom sweat into her herb garden for years, never understanding why she put in so much time, for herbs she rarely used.  And then it happened.  I became my mother.  Lucky me!