Growing grass in a starving world

[Ken Adams]

Am I the only one that shakes his head as I drive past one useless green lawn after another? Nearly every home and all churches and schools seem to think grass is an important crop.

 

[catjac1975]

There are some good reasons to have a lawn besides the appearance that people enjoy. A place to play or relax with reduced ticks, snakes and other inhabitants of tall hay or other crops. Reduces the chance of the spread of wildfire to a home. I am sure there are other good reasons. I try not to be judgement of others. But that is hard for all of us.

 

[Ken Adams]

I agree that some open lawn space is needed. But with food supplies shrinking and populations growing people need to reassess how much play space they need. What bothers me the most are the churches and schools. Churches could be helping provide food for the needy and schools could be teaching kids how to feed themselves

 

[seedcorn]

So who's going to do all the work? Great thought but won't work.

People that don't have gardens is because they don't want the work as most towns have spaces for people to use. How many people even know how (or desire) to cook fresh produce?

AG company I use to work for, tilled the lots, marked them and most of them were weed patches by July.

 

[Ken Adams]

Valid point in regard to most people these days. But schools have no excuse. They have the land and the manpower (students). A new culture begins with youth

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

There are some large mansions starting to pop up here and there, and they have huge lawns, even some of the smaller houses seem to have lawns that are unreasonably large.

I have thought about trying to get people around my area to get into wild foods, stuff already growing out there without human intervention, but haven't really gotten around to it. (many of the people here are either really old or young so I would have a good audience, you also don't want to be talking or handing out flyers to people at the mall or local Walmart - camping grounds, a park, or maybe a farm would be a better place to do it.) Over time this may get them into thinking about having smaller lawns (But then again, many people will be hesitant or outright refuse to eat "weeds". They're going to need encouragement and lots of facts, this is modern society that we're talking about here).

I hope that I'm getting your brain going here. Edible groundcovers/ornamentals might be another thing to consider for those out there that have flower gardens but don't grow vegetables.

 

[Ken Adams]

I do believe mother nature is in the process of changing people's opinion of eating "weeds"

 

[seedcorn]

Valid point in regard to most people these days. But schools have no excuse. They have the land and the manpower (students). A new culture begins with youth

& you think you will get students to do physical work?

They are protected by laws, they aren't slave labor. Great thought, not going to happen.

People are hungry because they choose to be. We all live by choices we make.

 

[Ken Adams]

Hunger has a way of changing priorities...and hunger is coming. Perhaps these ideas won't seem so crazy in the coming years

 

[Carol Dee]

@Ken Adams I see you just joined us today! Way to jump in with both feet. so...