You know that actually is the purpose of a lawn? They started as a trend of the French monarchy - the ones revolutionaries beheaded for being self indulgent assholes.

It exists purely as a status symbol that says, “I have land but I don’t have to use it for anything productive. I can invest time, money and resources in maintaining an entirely useless crop on land I’m not farming just because it looks pretty.”

Lawns offend me.

Why have that stunted golf course in front of your suburban house if you can’t even water it? Get one of these instead.

Unite Against the Lawn

Pro tiny house, anti grass lawn. Prioritize practicality.

This is actually really interesting because back in the 1950s and 60s in Australia when we started getting large waves of Southern European migrants one thing the Italians and others would often so is buy a little suburban home, then tear out the ornamental flower beds and lawn and useless trees and plant fruits, vegetables, grapes and even olives. It was considered completely scandalous by their Anglo-Saxon neighbours because lawn was considered an aspirational thing and the ideal was to go from not needing a kitchen garden and having an ornamental garden to show how well you were doing.

It’s looped around, somewhat. Having fruit trees, practical plants or at least some form of decent plant life on your lawn is pretty popular.

Australia certainly has the land to spare for it. It’s why Melbourne is covered in trees and such even in the heart of the city - practical use of the land.

My maternal grandparents are Italian immigrants and they have a huge fucking garden at their house. There’s a ton of vegetables (my brother used to pull onions right out of the ground and eat them) as well as grapes, and peaches that they can themselves. There used to be raspberries. With the tomatoes, they make a FUCKTON of sauce. Their basement is full of it. We don’t buy sauce because my grandparents supply it.

And yet now in some places, government officials are trying to ban gardens… Because “they’re ugly.” 

I’ve also seen people trying to ban Tiny Houses and going off the grid in any way… Pretty sad when the government is forcing people to be dependent on them.

Urban farming is my favorite sort of rebellion.

http://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/272790-146730-urban-gardens-plant-seeds-of-activism

Spend a weekend setting up an auto-drip system and you cut your work down to almost nothing. Then when you come home from work, you can enjoy your spoils. If you have too much, you can barter, donate to the food bank or gift your food to friends. Fruit trees, grapes, zucchini, tomatoes, ducks and chickens are my best food suppliers so far. I’m seriously considering adding bees next.