An image of what's growing at the foot of my back porch.I like the flowers a lot, but the freaky seed pods are my favorite.
I wish I had ten times the yard, I'd have ten times the garden.
Most folks in the USA are stupid about lawns.
They water and fertilize and mow them, dumping untold tons of fertilizer and pesticides and carbon gasses into the air to have something that's a boring monoculture that they rarely sit on or play on, preferring to escape reality by playing video games or watching advertising masquerading as football.
Then they bitch about the grass growing and climb back on their fossil fueled riding mowers again, before going to a big overpriced grocery store to buy flavorless produce grown in places thousands of miles away.
When the suburbs empty out, poor folks will move in and grow gardens.
I may be one of them.
I've turned almost every single bit of my yard into flowerbeds, garden or a mix of both.
Ten gallons of salsa are in my game plan this year.
Death to lawns! Death to bad produce!
And most of all, death to the infernal combustion lawnmower!
Some straight dope for the dopes mowing!
Each weekend, about 54 million Americans mow their lawns, using 800 million gallons of gas per year and producing tons of air pollutants. Garden equipment engines, which have had unregulated emissions until very recently, emit high levels of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, producing up to 5% of the nation's air pollution and a good deal more in metropolitan areas.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a traditional gas powered lawn mower produces as much air pollution as 43 new cars each being driven 12,000 miles.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a traditional gas powered lawn mower produces as much air pollution as 43 new cars each being driven 12,000 miles.
FACT: one hour of mowing is the equivalent of driving 350 miles in terms of volatile organic compounds.
Fact: One gas mower spews 87 lbs. of the greenhouse gas CO2, and 54 lbs. of other pollutants into the air every year.
Fact: Over 17 million gallons of gas are spilled each year refueling lawn and garden equipment – more oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez
2 comments:
Heard on the news today that the cost of fertilizer is shooting through the roof along with everything else...trickle, trickle
Talk about coming shit-storms!
Ironic that the cost of shit is going to affect the entire economy. Of course, if we just used shit instead of petrol-based fertilizer, we'd have much less of a problem.
Caught a wild bunny eying my garden yesterday...might have to kick it's ass.
Our country is stupid that way, we can't use our treated sewage for vegetable gardens because we dump so many chemicals into it, from heavy metals and waste from industry to large amounts of pharmacuticals and cleaning products.
Not to mention the odd squeamish thing people get about humanure. I got no problem with it, if it's done right. Everything and everybody winds up in the carbon cycle sooner or later.
Post a Comment