Chicago in Spring

My friends from the farm in California told me that folks put cardboard down on lawns and cover it with manure and compost and grow potatoes in that.  Not only do you get some great potatoes, but you take out the grass, too!

I think that it is time to say this:

Lawns are wasted space.  Mind you, lawns used for parties and picnics, those that have a functional purpose are like parks or community gardens, they are sacred space in the urban context.  But so many lawns simply exist to waste water on very little habitat, hardly any native habitat, and are under-utilized in any positive way.  Even just the simple conversion of a lawn into a prairie garden, with a good variety of grasses and wild flowers would cause some sort of balance shift.

And that’ll be next spring, i guess.