What changes are you making?

[Irulan]

Even though I'm only three miles from work now, that's too far to cycle in a suit

Funny, I know more than a few doctors and lawyers and other suit wearing types who ride to work, some 10-15 miles or more each way. Keep a towel and the right kind of clothes at work allow yourself some time to freshen up... it can't be THAT difficult to get the logistics down?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Then I went out and used my new cultivator to clean up some dead spots in the lawn

You've touched on my pet peeve....people with acres of GIANT useless lawns that they never even use, and waste gasoline mowing them week after week on massive rider mowers. All because they want their little plot to look like a miniature 'estate' or some such idea.
Huge lawns use our precious fuels, create only barren wasteland as far as wildlife is concerned, and give nothing productive back in return. Plus people pour chemical fertilizers and weedkillers (herbicides) on them- thus polluting our earth more and more. Even the earth worms can't survive in them.
Last year I rode my bike on a suburban type road, past dozens of houses in a row with 1/2 inch ugly barren mowed lawns. As I rode, I heard the unusual sound of crickets getting nearer. Turns out there was one house that had allowed their whole lawn to become a tidy little meadow. As I rode past it, I was greeted by a heavenly chorus of crickets singing, and i saw butterflies all over the wild flowers there, and also there were little sparrows flitting over the wild grasses and flowers, eating the abundant seeds. It was so lovely!
Then I passed that house and continued riding past the barren silent expanses of lawns again. Might as well just roll out plastic astro turf.


So you go Mr. S....plow that back 40 and plant it with FOOD!
The time has come for the nation wide return of the individual "Victory Garden".

[Bruno28]

[Mr. Bloom]

Well Lisa, our "estate" is one acre, so it would allow for a large victory garden, but unfortunately, in a community with unbridled billboards (my pet peeve), we are required by ordinance to maintain the lawns. As Zsa Zsa said "I get allergic smelling hay"

However, I've taken up the practice of letting it go dormant in the drought to minimize maintenance.

If it's any consolation, my condo in Bloomington is a designated natural habitat. We wrap around this pond

[Trek420]

I grew a tomato

[Bruno28]

I grew a tomato

It's a start...

[Trek420]

But BSG it's not gonna happen. As my mutt and I walked around my "hood" this morning you can see the TV's on, people glued to the game, heck, I'm online right now.

Nearly 500 units in the condo association here, they landscape if agapanthus and ivy count as landscape. Three families garden, I'm one of 'em. A few others have at least planted roses, native plants in front.

I'm inspired daily to do more, sometimes seeing bees and hummingbirds enjoying the lavender and rosemary in front. This morning as I had coffee 3 birds enjoyed the feeder and water in the patio.

Tomatoes volunteered in my planters from the compost, two got ripe enough to eat. These might not make it to a salad stage. Still nice that they are here.

I'm going to come off as a Ludite or old fogey but people need to turn off the TV, log off and go outside. In this country our biggest farm product ... is lawn. Meanwhile we're loosing habitat for wildlife and recreation, wondering where the bees are and what's happening to them, and dreaming of the next happy meal and oh, don't get me started.

I saw a wonderful program this morning about Will Allen, bringing farming, open space and GOOD food to urban areas.

http://aaenvironment.blogspot.com/20...-receives.html

[jesvetmed]

Trek: Very true!
Hey.. just wanted to let you know I PURCHASED 3 tomato plants and tended them nicely, and you almost did as well as I did with your "accidental" production! I got 4 red ones before the frost hit. Shows how great your compost probably is...and what a 'brown' thumb I really have.
Next year I'll shoot for 8. Small strides

I do, however, have an entire bag full of my neighbors' tomatoes and cucumbers. If I can use them up before they go bad I'll be lucky! I have dreams of canning some day -- definitely will need a better/bigger kitchen and even one storage cabinet. But this would be a huge help vs. buying canned tomatoes and sauce, and pesto, etc, through the winter.

[smilingcat]

love to see others planting a Victory Garden.

We love growing Cherokee Purple, Zebra tomatos; Armenian and Japanese cucumber; red bell pepper, Anaheim chilli, Thai chilli, Shishito peppers; eggplants... and different kinds of "lettuce". You can really tell a difference between a home grown spinach from a store bought or even from a farmers market.

I never liked spinach salad until it came from the garden in less than an hour. WOW! They are so good.

And yes, B-streetgirl, we have a garden out front and on the side. My neighbor across the street does it too. We have humming birds, butterfly ... It was fun watching a crow trying to break a branch for her nest. Branch was bit too big for her. Only sad event was we found a juvenile opposum who had died in our yard.

All this in Los Angeles suburb of concrete, and asphalt.

We are replacing some of the lettuce and herbs. I think we still saved a ton of money by growing our own food. And we will be planting garlic, shallots for the fall. Cabbage takes too much space but may be brussel sprouts. They are so sweet when its fresh out of the garden.

We may try tomato over the winter in a hot house we plan to build out in our back yard.

Yup, my partner and I are left over hippies of sort.

smilingcat

[Eden]

Jes- don't feel bad, tomatoes are *very* difficult to grow around here.... it doesn't really get warm enough - and especially this year it was so cold all of the way through June. Unless you get starts and cloche (cover with plastic) your plants or have a green house its hard to get any to ripen before they rot. If you plant varieties that have smaller fruit - cherry tomatoes, some romas, its more likely you'll get to eat some.

Snow peas, radishes, lettuce -stuff that doesn't mind cool weather does great in this climate.

[Tuckervill]

I have an acre and a half of lot, on which there are 7 pecan trees, a 40x30' vegetable garden, grapevines on all the fences and a smokehouse. Butterflies and hummingbirds visit my vines and flowers across the front fence, and squirrels live in abundance on stolen pecans. I never put weedkiller or fertilizer or anything else on the plants in my yard.

But, I still have to burn gasoline on my riding mower to mow the grass!

Karen

[Aggie_Ama]

I am required to have freaking bermuda grass in my yard as part of my deed!! But there was nothing to say we couldn't dig up half that crud from the front yard in favor of tastefull landscaping. We now have a large mulched (water wise you know) landscape beds that will soon house: dwarf Japanese barberry (water sipper), native Texas Yucca, native Texas Skullcap, Native Texas Dwarf Katie Ruellia and water sipping society garlic. Best part is all the native stuff is a butterfly and hummingbird dream landscape. I cannot wait to have it all in place.

The trees are native oaks mulched out while most the neighbood hood did not put in permanent tree rings and re-mulch allowing the water hogging grass to crawl in the tree rings the builder constructed with mulch and drain life from the trees. Now they complain the trees are dead. They put chemicals on the yard without reasing about them. We boil water to kill fire ants (in a sick way it is fun) and use organic products made for our area. I leave lizards and toads where others run them off. I allow birds to build nests and have enjoyed a mosquito free porch even though I must wash off the bird poo.

The backyard will eventually be converted to majority xeriscaping as well. We will spend less than 1 hour to mow. I do not have a desire to grow vegetables on the limestone 1" under my yard but I do have a desire to put buffalo or native grass in the back yard where the HOA won't be back there to check what happened to the bermuda.

The rest of my neighboorhood plants unique looking exotic plants that require tons of water to grow here. Instead of going to a local nursery that could help with plant selection they go to Lowe's where the plants are picked by a buyer who has no lnadscaping background. I know I did a lot of time in Lowe's working. So while some people are interested and care about a water wise yard like us most will just pick something that looks "neat" and not care about drought tolerance, water requirements, etc... They will water the yard daily even though ours looks the same watering 1 hour 2x a week as allowed by the water restrictions (unenforced). People think it is unconvenient to be interested in learning what is best for our personal environment. Well at least I will have a nice yard that works here.

[Flur]

DH and I rent, and we really haven't made much in the way of changes even though I'm not working. We were already putting most of our money into savings and paying down the debt we both accrued living young and poor in NYC. We already take the bus or ride bikes everywhere. The only change we've made is that we were going to buy a house and didn't. I don't consider us vultures, but we are looking forward to the cheaper home prices for when I've got a secure job and we're ready to buy something.

We live above our landlord and have no say about how he treats the lawn and grounds, but I would love to have a garden. I'm happy to see that, in our neighborhood at least, it's become trendy to grow the grass a bit longer, and to use the old push mowers with the revolving blade that leaves the grass with a bit of an uneven shagginess to it. All the best looking homes have this kind of lawn. Hopefully it will catch on with the others.

[ACG]

I live in Pasadena, a burb of Los Angeles. I have a fantastic vegetable garden. Tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, chilis of all kinds, herbs too. It is sunny here and I water the vegies, they love it!

On my changes. I am trying to pay off all my debt except the house in the next 90 days. Can't pay off the house, cuz I just bought it! Turning off lights wherever I can. Not using the air or the heat. Being careful what I buy. I need a new fridge, so I'm gonna save up and pay cash. I am going to go back to school and I will attend the local junior college first, instead of a university. The JC is cheaper and closer. Eventually I'll have to hit the university, so I'll take the bus or train as I live very close to the commuter lines. This whole thing scares me, but I'm trying not to panic too much and I've decided not to watch any of it on TV anymore.

[GLC1968]

You've touched on my pet peeve....people with acres of GIANT useless lawns that they never even use, and waste gasoline mowing them week after week on massive rider mowers. All because they want their little plot to look like a miniature 'estate' or some such idea.
Huge lawns use our precious fuels, create only barren wasteland as far as wildlife is concerned, and give nothing productive back in return. Plus people pour chemical fertilizers and weedkillers (herbicides) on them- thus polluting our earth more and more. Even the earth worms can't survive in them.
Last year I rode my bike on a suburban type road, past dozens of houses in a row with 1/2 inch ugly barren mowed lawns. As I rode, I heard the unusual sound of crickets getting nearer. Turns out there was one house that had allowed their whole lawn to become a tidy little meadow. As I rode past it, I was greeted by a heavenly chorus of crickets singing, and i saw butterflies all over the wild flowers there, and also there were little sparrows flitting over the wild grasses and flowers, eating the abundant seeds. It was so lovely!
Then I passed that house and continued riding past the barren silent expanses of lawns again. Might as well just roll out plastic astro turf.


So you go Mr. S....plow that back 40 and plant it with FOOD!
The time has come for the nation wide return of the individual "Victory Garden".

I have issues with this, too. It's even worse when (in the middle of an arid summer) we bike by these homes and see 15 - 20 auto sprinker heads going at NOON - what a waste! Precious water - to grow lawn that no one ever uses!


We have barely over one acre. The front is sort of lawn - but it's basically grass/weeds/wildflowers for now and we don't water it. We only mow it when absolutely necessary and we don't own a riding mower. The rest of our property houses goats, chickens, veggie gardens, berry brambles, grape arbors and about 20 different fruit trees. We also have a few nut trees arriving in November! All of it is organic - every last growing thing.

Even if you live in a suburb that is deed restricted, you can still plant small plots in the back private areas (or do container gardenting on a patio or balcony) and everyone can compost on some scale. 'Victory gardens' will hopefully become more and more prevalent in the coming years.