Still Need Convincing?

Spiral Raised Bed - interesting idea for a front lawn.

Some Scary Facts About U.S. Lawns

• Residential lawns comprise 23 million acres of land in the U.S.
• 58 million Americans spend $30 billion per year for lawn care.
• 270 billion gallons of water a week are used to water U.S. lawns. That's enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables for a summer.
• $5.25 billion per year is spent on fossil fuel-derived fertilizers for lawn care -- the majority of this ends up as pollution in our surface and groundwater, increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease and birth defects. Just switching to organic fertilizer and compost would eliminate a good part of this pollution.
• 580 million gallons of gasoline are used to mow lawns each year. A good chunk of this creates air pollution because of evaporation and another chunk pollutes our groundwater because of spillage.
• Running a gasoline-powered lawn mower for an hour produces pollution equivalent to driving a gas-powered car for 20 miles.
• 67 million pounds of synthetic pesticides are used in the upkeep of U.S. lawns each year, the majority polluting our surface and groundwater.
• $700 million is spent every year on those 67 million pounds of pesticides.

Still need convincing? The average lawn in the U.S. is approximately 1/3 of an acre. That's enough space to keep a family of 6 in organic vegetables year round and still have a small patch of grass! So next time you have the urge to plant something, make it edible!