A better front yard
August 27th, 2009
One of the pleasures of walking around Berkeley is the high number of beautiful and intriguing gardens. I’m particularly impressed, however, with the project that’s ripening just around the corner from my house. On Russell Street in the Elmwood one of my neighbors decided last year to dig up her neat, pretty front garden and plant vegetables.
She’s out there regularly, tending to her tomatoes, squash and broccoli. I’m sure it’s good exercise, and she’s about to harvest some wonderful bounty. We definitely need to dig up our water-hungry grass and do something similarly inspiring.
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“We definitely need to dig up our water-hungry grass and do something similarly inspiring.”
Bless you.
Can you imagine extending that a bit further? Now, this is truly “pie in the sky” hippy fantasy stuff but, maybe actually not quite:
Imagine whole streets where homeowners are inclined to give up water-hungry and/or purely decorative yards for food crops. Let a coop or city effort manage the whole affair. Coordinate, don’t just do it house by house: Food crops, even in a typical small Berkeley yard are a decent chunk of work but, hang on, there are economies of scale to be had there, especially if an entire side of a street turns into a food crop field.
Jobs for teenagers! Jobs for vendors! No more awkward problems of having too much zucchini to give away (it just goes to market). Goats, pigs, chickens! A few IT jobs doing the accounting for the City Farm. Some Mech E. jobs locally making tools like drip irrigation systems.
And think of the impact that would have on civil order, too. The ethos of individual owners protecting their property is pretty different from the community effort of protecting the plantings where some double-digit percentage of our food comes from.
-t