Food Not Lawns: Join the Movement

You don’t have to live in Santa Barbara to participate in this grassroots effort. Food Not Lawns works to reduce lawns and increase food. It doesn't matter where you live, replacing your space-taking, water draining, pesticide-using lawn promotes sustainability. If you replace your lawn with food, you can then share what you grow, trade what you grow for something you don’t grow…..and meet your neighbors. It’s that easy!

A recent issue of Sunset magazine featured a special report on how to reduce your family's water usage further highlighting the need to streamline water consumption throughout the Western states. I’ve long been a proponent of reduced water usage in the home (especially the use of water to grown your lawn). Sunset's article outlined a 12-step approach—simplified for quick application. It was a relief to see that kind of sustainably-focused content instead of another preview of a kitchen makeover.

One item Sunset didn’t directly mention is the growing movement to replace lawns with edible landscapes. Food Not Lawns, widespread throughout the United States, helps you achieve these goals by promoting urban sustainability and encourages growing food, implementing ecological design, sharing resources, and interacting with your community.  Started and by Heather C. Flores,  author of Food not Lawns, How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community, the movement is widespread throughout the world.

The scary truth about lawns
Today, about 80% of U.S. households spend approximately $40 billion every year to maintain over 21 million acres of lawn. That’s about a third of an acre for the average American lawn.

Imagine the locavore spread you could grow on 1/3 of an acre. I could feed my family and have enough to trade. According to Food Not Lawns, lawns in the United States use about 270 billion gallons of water a week—enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables, during the peak-growing season.

Lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland. These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of disease.

Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns

If you live in Santa Barbara, you can participate this summer in a backyard garden exchange program. Check the Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns website for upcoming garden exchanges.

Wherever you live, participate in an exchange, or create your own exchange.