Each year, Americans spend about $30 billion to grow a collective 23 million acres of lawn. We soak our grass with 270 billion gallons of water, an amount that would irrigate over 80 million acres of organic veggies. And to make sure it grows thick and ankle high, we douse every acre with ten times the pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides required for an acre of industrial farmland. Then we waste the weekend flaring up lawn mowers that emit enough pollution in one hour to equal the 350 mile journey of a car.

With the over abundance of grass in this country, and the ever dwindling amount of farmland, two western organizations have formally taken up the cause of replacing lawns with gardens.

The Cascadia Food Not Lawns program provides information and encouragement for those interested in taking the bold step. In doing so, the gathering of grassroots gardeners from the Willamette Valley, works to create a thriving bioregion through permaculture, ecological design and biodynamics.

A similar initiative out of L.A. called Edible Estates, proposes that lawn growers replace grass with, "a highly productive domestic, edible landscape." By replacing the uniformity of grass with the, "chaotic abundance of biodiversity," the initiative hopes to reconnect eaters with the origin of their food... Read Full Article.

For more lifestyle news, visit New West.