~SUSTAINABLE LIVING FOR CHALLENGING TIMES

[eaglesurvivor]

DiamondWater: grass for a lawn and a lawn are cultural concepts. For many years, I had a high-end landscaping business. I told clients that grass was the most expensive ground cover and had the highest maintenance. Even back then, I converted many of them to outer mass plantings other than grass. The few lawns that I did had either tons of limestone quarry grit or sand mixed in with the clay, as builders/developers haven't a clue about maintaining existing agronomy. Then I added well-decomposed leaf mold to the surface. With petrol-based fertilizers, the roots of the grass would curl back to the top, as the fertilizers do not leak down. The result would be thatch.

Even though I received many valuable teachings in vo-ag high school and studying horticulture in college, there were mythologies and other information that I had to unlearn. One example was painting tree limbs where they were cut. My journey of knowledge took me many places and caused me to meet the folks at ECHO. http://www.echonet.org/ This was in preparation for me to go to Africa.

Typical and, possibly, traditional USA agricultural and, especially, horticultural practices are far out of alignment with maximum production, ecology, and sustainability of the land. In states, like Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, virtually all the trees are removed for seemingly endless fields of grains and/or legumes. This practice affects the micro-air masses and have long enhanced this area of the nation to become tornado alley. They have decades of soil erosion from sweeping winds.

I am not even talking food forests here, which is a different subject that I hope that you will enjoy exploring. Trees can never be too far away from crops, especially near natural waterways. Trees are the ultimate companion crop, if for no other reason than to provide nesting, etc. for birds and insects.

I do not want you to think that I view grass as evil. However, land has been under constant and increasing siege. Think of available land as what is your bottom-line return on investment (ROI) and return on time ROT). With the advent of peak oil, alone, few people would be hard pressed to have a superior ROI and ROT than utilizing part or all of available land for food production. Of course, there is almost no other means of obtaining frost-kissed parsnips: an almost decadent pleasure.