How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community
By H.C. Flores
Reviewed by Charlie Malone
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
H.C. Flores writes, “the Natural world is in deep decline due to the grossly unsustainable habits of humankind. This is no secret.” If you’ve a propensity for subversion, if you’ve time and passion to organize your community, Food Not Lawns offers factual, pragmatic, and ideological support. If you just want to grow food organically you’ll also find a whole-systems approach to gardening including great suggestions for water, soil, and seed conservation.
Food Not Lawns is more than a “how to”. Flores’s radical, holistic thinking suggests everything from graywater systems and dumpster diving to a daily stretch routine. Some practices might make you uncomfortable. Modern introverts will shy away from the responsibility to community that Flores argues goes hand in hand with working in yards or window-boxes. Still, there’s a supply of practical tips for healthy, harmonious living.
If you’re not committed to her cause, you’ll find it impossible to forget that Flores’ vision of urban gardening is equal parts yard-work and social activity. Not carrying the practice and produce to your neighbors leaves the cycle incomplete. Flores tries to convince us that failure to change will result in our extinction. Whether you accept the gravity of this assertion or not, Food Not Lawns contains a wealth of information. Her purpose, met with clear language and simple instruction, is to help anyone choosing an organic lifestyle “to apply these ethics to our diets, our gardens, our homes, and our communities.” |
