Don't Mow - Grow...

Up Up and Away

It’s been years since we went away on a family holiday.  As a family we all have different interests. I like walking around public gardens (and DIY shops), Julie wants to sit on a beach and the lads are chalk and cheese when it comes to interests.  Logistically then it’s a bit of a compromise, which is why we usually just have day trips around Inishowen.  This year though we were looking at places a bit further afield and pricing up flights on the internet.  I was intrigued to see that every time I went onto a page on flight details the prices kept going up... and up.  By the time I thought about booking the cost had gone up by €50.

I have found out that this is because websites have cookies and are set up so the flights go up every time you reopen the page.  Panic sets in as you think the seats are being booked up so you buy.  It’s not a well known fact that this happens but there is a way around it if you are thinking of booking a flight.  Either use a different computer or more technically, clear your cache and cookies from the computer.  It could save you a small fortune.

Volunteering

I was also pricing flights to more exotic places around the world when I was online. I have a friend in Bali Indonesia who has set up a 5 Rhythms dance and meditation centre and is looking for willing workers to help put up some wooden huts, set up a permaculture garden and dig a pool, I’m very tempted, although at the rate they are digging the pool will be finished well before I get there!  Then there’s a place near to my brother in Byron Bay Australia who is looking for gardening  work to be done in exchange for food and shelter. (I found this courtesy of workaway.info where there are jobs all around the world on offer) 

Maybe it’ll be something for me to think about later on in the year when winter sets in. I’m not quite ready yet to jump on a plane, fly across the world and roll my sleeves up and work on other people’s projects just yet as I have one of my own this spring. I have been looking at the front garden and the possibilities of turning into a small productive vegetable patch.  

The whole are only measures 20 feet by 10 feet, it’s small but just the right size for about four veggie beds to get me started.  The garden is raised up from the street about three feet which is ideal for keeping any dogs off. At the moment it’s just grass so I have a blank canvas to play with. 

Don’t Mow – Grow

There is a big movement, (especially in America) where front gardens are being turned from lawns into productive veggie patches.  It comes as a price in some states though as householders have been threatened with prison for growing vegetables in their front gardens. One mother of six faces up to 93 days in jail for refusing to take out the raised beds in front of her home and plant what the city deemed “suitable” ground cover.

New Uses

Because lawns need a lot of water, chemicals, care, time and fuel to keep them in good shape, more and more people are turning their backs on mowing and deciding to grow vegetables instead. Sustainability, water shortages, more expensive food and the recession has given rise to an alternate view of the lawn similar to the Victory Gardens in World War 11  

Food Not Lawns, an environmental group, advocates abolishing ornamental grasses in favour of edible gardens, while the National Wildlife Federation sponsors a program for homeowners interested in creating wildlife habitats in their gardens. The transformation can start with something as minimal as adding flowers that attract migratory butterflies or be as ambitious as cultivating a wild landscape.

A serious side                                                                                                

Though rooted in something as innocuous as vegetables, the disputes about removing the raised beds from front gardens touch on divisive issues. These being homeowner rights, property values, sustainability, food integrity and the aesthetics of the traditional lawn to mention but a few. Ecologists and libertarians alike have gotten into the debate, the latter asserting that the codification of gardens is just one more way the government tells people how to live. I’m not expecting any problems with the neighbours though although, what was it a bloke called Felder Rushing said? “It doesn't matter what you do, or how you do it, your neighbours are gonna talk about you anyway.”