Growing Things That Come Back: Permaculture For the Rest of Us

There's an old saying that Society Creates the Crime. It could also be said that Society Creates the Trendy Environmental Solution.  

Locally-grown organic food, for example, could only be considered a neat thing by a society which has abandoned locally grown organic agriculture, and then embraces it as a fashionable passion as if it had just been newly discovered. In a way, it's akin to Columbus 'discovering' a half of a planet which was already inhabited by many millions of people. 

'Permaculture' is one of those trendy cocktail-party words that left-leaning publishing houses just can't seem to print enough about. Only a society which had entirely converted to exotic, non-sustainable decorative landscaping, maintained through intensive chemical and labor interventions, could think of permaculture as a trendy new invention discovered by white men from some upscale north-eastern university instead of good-old fashioned practicality. 

For those of us who are not much concerned about how our gardening methods sound to the cocktail-party set, planting things that come back year after year and work well in our local climate and soil is not only common sense, but is cost-effective, environmentally sound, and an efficient means of feeding both body and soul.  Native plants -- in my neck of the woods, mint, sunflowers, black-eyed susan, joe pye weed, Jerusalem artichokes, bee balm, etc.-- and their cultivars make a natural starting place. 

Rhubarb and Jerusalem Artichokes Return Every Year

Locally-adapted, low-care perennial flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables create a rich and beautiful home environment needing only annual additions of compost and frequent picking. Rhubarb, irises, daffodils, thistles, anise hyssop, rue, oregano, marjoram, aloe, bleeding hearts, elderberry, blueberries, hibiscus, sand cherry bushes, yarrow, echinacea, all come back year after year. 

Self-seeding annual herbs and flowers like sweet williams, cilantro, parsley, bachelor's buttons, lupines, walking onions, multiplier onions, pansies and johnny jump-ups, all establish their own patches and do not need to be replanted each year. Just refresh with a little compost and weed out any intruding grass or other unwanted species to give them a competitive advantage.

Sunflowers self-seed each year, and give goldfinches and other songbirds a place to perch between eating garden bugs. Lilac hedges provide heavenly scent and a practical wind-break. Kale, left to regrow a second season, provides edible flowers loved by butterflies -- and a crop of easily-saved seed to replant. 

The high-end permaculture books would have you believe that this trendy new idea requires consultants, graph paper, earth-moving equipment and a huge financial investment. None of that is true. All it takes is attention to where you live and in the space you have, and to what you want to get out of that space.There's no point planting a big asparagus patch if you can't stand asparagus. Look at what you've got for space, light and soil; look around you and talk to your neighbors about what grows well for them; and plant what works.   

Save the Earth: Rip Up Your Lawn

The largest irrigated crop in America is lawn grass. There is three times as much acreage in lawn grass production as in corn -- and many lawn owners apply just as much fertilizer and pesticides to maintain their outdoor carpets as those big corporate farmers do to produce commodity corn. 

Where does that fertilizer go after you dump them on the lawn? Some gets taken up by the grass, of course, but much of it washes away, into our rivers and lakes causing excessive growth that uses up too much oxygen and ultimately chokes out the aquatic ecosystem. 

Think about the quantity of fresh, potable water nationwide used to water lawns. Think about the amount of air pollution sent into our lungs every week as millions of homeowners or their landscapers mow, leaf-blow, and power-rake. 

Food prices are rising, and most people go without fresh, locally-grown, organic produce because it's unavailable or too expensive. Yet America's suburban homeowners are sitting on the most valuable asset our nation has -- fertile land -- and using it for a home decoration. Instead of generating healthy food for themselves, their neighbors, and those without land, suburbanites waste this resource by using it as an expensive, chemical-laden hobby.  

While it's easy to point fingers at corporate agriculture as the root of food shortages and a loss of food quality, the millions of small landowners who inhabit suburbia have the power to make a significant impact on world food supplies and their own pocketbooks and health simply by ripping up their lawns.

Turning your lawn into gardens means you'll get economic value out of it instead of dumping money into it.  You'll get healthy produce for your own family, saving on the grocery bill, and can even produce enough to share with neighbors or the local food shelf. Check out the Facebook site for Grow Food, Not Lawns if you want to connect with like-minded individuals who can inspire you with stunning photos, plans, and information for transforming your expensive lawn crop into an environmentally-sound, economically-productive garden.