It is funny where online research will take you. I am always on the lookout for ideas for my weekly newspaper column, the Farm Side. After over ten years of writing it, sometimes not repeating myself is a challenge. Lately I have been mulling over the recent upsurge in home gardening and massive sales of garden seeds and trying to think of a way to get a column out of it. A post Nita wrote on the topic, which reminded me or WWII Victory gardens, was all the stimulus I needed. This week I actually got busy with it and it will run Friday (unless the editor vetoes it or something).
I learned so much while writing this one! I was constantly calling in to the boss, who was reading in the other room. Things like, "Did you know that Sears sold 325,000 pressure cookers in 1943?"
Or, "Did you know that we in America plant three times as much ground in lawn as in corn?"
Here are some of the places I visited in my search for data to back up my positive thoughts about gardens and my somewhat less than positive feelings about lawns.
Victory Garden
The Murder of a Garden
Landscapes and the Law
Garden on Trial
Lawn Nation (if you click any of these, click this one...amazing!)
And, last but not least, Revenge of the Lawn (which will tell you something about my reading tastes in college.
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7 comments:
Great post, thanks for the link. I'm betting your article will be great, will we get a peek too?
Lawn here means "Grass Cut Short" weeds and all. Sometimes there are sheep or cows doing the job.
In Portland this season there is almost 800 people waiting for a community garden spot, last season at this time 400.
I hope you will reprint your article here so I can read it.
Back in the day, I believed that lawns were the bestest thing you could run your bare feet through, complete with morning dew. No crabgrass, no dandelions, no stray rocks, not even a gift from the neighbor's dog. It was great.
Grass belongs in pastures!
Nita, thanks, I will see what I can do after a bit.
I can believe that about the waiting list for gardens. It is getting that way here too.
tipper, I will see about it. I usually wait a good while, since I don't want to step on the paper's toes
Steve, I remember lawns like that...sure don't have one now.
FC, hear, hear!
I'm with you on the lawn thing. I once calculated that I have wasted almost 2 years of my life mowing lawns. Surely we can find better things to do with our time.
Our next house is going to be in the middle of a woodlot, with nary a blade of grass to be seen.
akagaga, Hi, thanks for visiting!
I have never been a fan of lawns, except when I was much younger and living alone and the lawn was where I grazed my horse...now that worked out just fine. lol
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