Growing food instead of lawns in California front yards | Hacker News Reader

Growing food instead of lawns in California front yards

nytimes.com

47 pointsCrypticShift85 comments

CropSwapLA is in my neighborhood, they do amazing work! Just the fact that a single residential property can grow enough produce for 45 families _each week_ is astonishing. Their technology in their latest farm (https://www.cropswapla.org/degnan) is very special as well: they refer to it as terraponic. 100% recycled water, but also using some soil for temperature and moisture control. Best of both worlds between traditional farming and 100% controlled aquaponics farms. The growing boxes are entirely separated from the ground, which limits pests and maintenance. Nutrition is provided through the water, with exactly the right balance that the respective plants need.

Yes, I'm biased, I'm a big fan. Just wanted to share some highlights because I think the article doesn't do the amazing work of Jamiah and his team justice. I hope we get to see many more such micro farms all across Los Angeles and Southern California.

Huh, I thought this was going to be about Food Not Lawns, but apparently not. This is a whole movement: https://www.foodnotlawns.com/

The forum links on that page don't seem to work. Is there a forum?

Works fine for me. Leads to either a Facebook group or here: https://community.ecodesignhive.com/

Lawns are an upper-class, 18th century invention, because of course growing food on land is for peasants. The larger the lawn, the more expensive the maintenance, so a well kept lawn was a display of status.

Then, 19th century middle-class, in an attempt to look wealthier and having no personality whatsoever, replicated the trend on their tiny lots, even though they owned much less land, and keeping a lawn is a financial burden.

Nowadays, there's so much profit in this space (equipment, herbicides, etc) that there's an immense marketing budget to keep the status quo.

That's why it's important to learn your history. Good to see this trend reversing.

Lawns are functional though, they aren't just a status symbol. They can be, but they can also be a social and recreational space. Can also be a piece of art - you may laugh sure but, what is art? What is something kept for its aesthetic value alone?

Also over the pond it's an invention much older than merely the 18th century.

The land will never be reclaimed by anyone but the owner so why is it a big deal if someone manicures it. Buy your land and do with it what you will.

I think it matters when the owner wants to do something different but feels obligated to maintain the status quo by neighbors, and often even laws and regulations.

Ah the old HN Gaslight Redirect. My reply is to a personal opinion of the OP, you're reply is to another argument made by not me.

This. Short grass around your structure increases the difficulty of rodent ingress. Keeping dead leaves raked and swept away reduces mosquito habitat. Sure you can put other plants there but the maintenance burden of them is going to be higher and depending on your roof and water/snow situation you might just wind up fighting a continuous battle against their destruction. In most of North America a lawn is simply the lowest maintenance way to keep nature at bay.

Also ticks.

My kids love to run around my backyard, and I keep it mowed and trimmed for them to do so.

The iconoclasm runs deep in techno-optimists, but some things stick around for a reason.

In my experience, urban parks do a much better job of this than backyards do. Urban density means more neighbors, and parks with other kids are much more appealing than backyards without.

Probably true - when I move to a dense urban area where a park makes more sense I will definitely take my kids there!

Backyards are different than frontyards. Your backyard is considered your private space and you can put a locked fence around it, store your stuff in a shed, put in a swimming pool, etc. You are more restricted with a front yard.

If I had the choice and I was forced to allocate, I would choose 100% backyard and 0% frontyard.

>Lawns are functional

Here in DFW where we didn't see a drop of rain for 3-4 months and +100 heat, it was around $600 a month in water to keep it green. I also never see anyone outside playing on their lawn. I see landscape maintenance once a week at a minimum cost of $45 per visit. Can't forget all the poison laid down 6 times a year at 100 + to kill the weeds and fertilize. The costs are enormous and the environmental damage is insane.

Or you could just not water it, not fertilize it, not pesticide it and simply run the mower over it whenever the assorted vegetation (which will be mostly grass) exceeds a certain height.

It won't look "nice neighborhood" nice but it'll still be fine.

The HOA would fine me. I wanted to put in a more southern desert scape but they said I have to have grass.

I think there is an important distinction between the front lawn and the back yard. In neighborhoods around my city, the front lawn is an entirely valueless piece of land (outside aesthetics).

The way homes are designed now, in places with basements, they also serve the function of hanging onto rainwater.

In an incredibly ironic twist, a suburban home garden is now a sign of wealth too. Having a sunny space large enough to grow food, and even more importantly, having the time to tend to it.

You can always outsource the work and still receive a share of the fruits of the labour, by providing someone else with opportunity to tend to the food growing.

Yes, but having the money to hire a servant is also a sign of wealth.

I don't think the OP was referring to servants, but the relatively common practice of letting your friends garden on your property in return for a share of the output.

Or just hiring a gardener? It’s not out of reach for most home owners.

It may be now a sign of wealth in a specific geographic and demographic strata. Having an orchard or at least growing herbs is a worldwide practice.

I'm from South America, and my grandma's house had: mango, peach, lime, orange, grapevine, berries, coconut, jaboticaba, pitanga, acerola, atemoia (native fruits), and many types of spices (including a bay laurel tree). All that in a lot that barely parked 3 cars.

Western Australia, house on the edge of a small rural town, same deal - all the water (sensibly) drains through the garden and trees (grey water - surface, septic via leach drains underground feeding trees) and we've got fruit, vegetables, herbs, chooks, etc.

Once setup it's low daily maintainance, pull weeds when seen and throw them in the compost, lots of things self seed or come back when leftovers + compost are turned over in a clean bed.

The layout dates back to the 1930s and was planned to be self sufficient with no "grid" as such.

Now it's much as it was with solar panels, big batteries, and fibre + home lab.

Have always been told to never throw weeds in the compost...

I've been throwing weeds in the compost for 20+ years - they break down fine .. some regrow but you can just pull them out again.

We have two three sided "bunkers" 2 metre x 2 metre square x 1.5 metre high that we fill with weeds and then cover every spring (on rotation), once covered they cook pretty hot which kills most things within, reduce them to juice and worm food and when respread a year later they grow good veggies.

We've just today finished spreading three double axle trailer loads (each about 1.5 tonne) of donkey poo and straw .. that's got a lot grass seed and digested grassy fecal matter in it .. it'll make great figs and probably grow grassy weeds under the fig tree .. that'll get pulled and thrown in the heaps also.

Pretty much the only things that don't go in the compost piles are metal, rocks, plastic, etc - if it's organic, it's in.

I have heard this theory before, and it seems too simplistic. I have a lawn, and I don’t care a bit about looking wealthy, and don’t think I lack personality. The lawn is an important part of my lovingly crafted landscape, along with trees, rock gardens, pathways, patios and furniture, harmoniously blended in a lush beautiful liveable outdoor space.

Lawn is like a carpet in a landscape. You can walk on it, lie on it, play on it, or just enjoy the esthetic of a lush uniform finish.

I suspect that disdain for lawns is correlated to disdain for ornate architecture or tasteful interior design. Some people just aren’t sensitive to the deep psychological effects of the spaces we live in.

I once erected a tent on my lawn so I could practice erecting the tent. The neighbour beside me came out in a huff and demanded I take it down.

I don’t have a disdain for beautiful things and I wasn’t even planning on keeping the tent up. The demand for uniformity is what irks me.

> Nowadays, there's so much profit in this space (equipment, herbicides, etc) that there's an immense marketing budget to keep the status quo.

This seems a bit conspiratorial, I'm sure the same companies would love to sell gardening equipment as well.

I just don't think most people bother. Gardening is super fun, but only if you know what you're doing or have the time and capacity to learn.

Why would it be important to know the history of lawns? Almost all knowledge in the universe is more important than knowing that.

Lawns are nice for children to play on. Maybe that's why hackers hate them so much?

I was surprised the first time I saw reference to this in the HN feed, but even more surprised at how many times it's been reposted.

Is this weird to people? In general I've learned to not pay attention to anything in the NYT when it comes to discussing California.

I'm in San Diego, many many people grow a garden in their yard. Front, back, wherever they have room.

Lawns are still more prevalent than I would expect. Even now, most people here don't realize that anything that's not brown sage scrub is being sustained with water from Colorado.

I was lucky enough to know some people before they died, who taught me: if you can't eat it, or smoke it, don't water it...

It would be nice if I could donate my front yard to a community garden. I would not have the time or the physical ability to maintain it. Myself, brass is actually easier that way, but if others are willing to grow and maintain crops there than I think that would be a fantastic use of the space.

California has some of the best weather in the country to do stuff like this. It's a no brainer. So many wonderful crops can be grown year round. Growing up we had an avocado tree, kumquat, lemons, limes, tomatoes, cukes, apples, grapefruits, you name it. As a Michigander now, I miss this a lot. If you are on the fence about this idea - please do it on behalf of everyone in the midwest or colder climates who can only grow outdoors for a few months out of the year.

Having a lawn is a ridiculous waste of resources, anyway. It's a win-win.

It's always worth checking out the native species that work best with your terrain, weather, and soil[0]. Though you may not be able to grow much food, you can grow a wonderfully rich, low maintenance garden with natives that will attract a diverse set of insects, birds, and animals. It in some ways might be more rewarding even than growing food, depending on your inclination.

My in-laws have an incredible native garden in California that is beautiful enough to have appeared in a couple of publications as an example (this is not some extravagant and rich family either, by any means). They rarely have to water their garden, compared with their neighbours who seem to have to hose/sprinkle their lawns every other day, practically.

0: https://www.canr.msu.edu/nativeplants/plant_facts/local_info...

But ... keep in mind it will attract insects, birds, and animals, and they may not be cute :). Be prepared for more insects in your house, more bird poop and more possums etc

All good things to have around your home. Possums eat insects =)

They’re almost* entirely harmless too. They’re not very photogenic but the most they do is hiss and show their teeth, and if that doesn’t work they… play dead.

* Possums spread fleas like nobody’s business

The big issue in much of California are rats. So many god damn rats.

I spent 25 years there and didn't see too many of those. Then again they don't really like to be seen. I wouldn't call it a nuisance though? They aren't an overwhelming threat, just a minor nuisance.

Bay Area - especially Palo Alto and San Jose - I’ve seen rats the size of small cats. And had to remediate multiple houses where they got into it and made a huge mess.

Only in areas with fruit trees though.

They’re fruit rats that like to live in trees so it’s pretty rare for them to make it inside the house - I’ve only had one rat make it into the walls in 20 years of living in a 100 year old house despite a dozen fruit trees surrounding the property. I’m in LA though so maybe the Bay Area winters drive them inside more often.

They absolutely ruin the harvest though. We manage to pick maybe a tenth of the pomelos and pomegranates that ripen before the rats get to them. I made a deal with one of my neighbors to tear down the fence and hedges separating our properties to prevent them from easily moving between trees on that side so at least the avocados are safe.

We’ve got rats in California but they’re a minor suburban nuisance, not a giant public health problem like in New York.

Literally had a dozen houses over the years with big problems in the Bay Area. Most people don’t notice until it gets really bad.

Or go into a crawl space or an attic - and then yikes.

LA does have a lot fewer of both of those though eh?

I have a friend in Michigan who grows a LOT of different foods in his yard, all the way up to PawPaw fruit. You're right that winter limits the growing season, but I was amazed at how diverse this guys food garden is.

It works during the summer for annual plants and hardy species that can withstand the winter but the number of frost days really limits what you can grow. They take a few extra years to fruit but trees like avocados really change the ratio of effort to edible produce but they’re sensitive to frost. In California the double growing season takes it up another level, at the expense of growing a small number of frost loving species like blueberries.

That said I had a very productive dacha north of Moscow so there’s plenty of stuff you can grow in colder climates, you just have to more creative with your choices.

In my previous home (a rental in San Mateo) I planted a small avocado jungle, which was eventually thinned to 3 trees that started producing in about 8 years. Half a block away was an enormous avocado, its canopy about 35' diameter. The soil there was fantastic, you could drop in anything and it would thrive. I live across the Bay now and though the soil quality is difficult (clay) the house came with 5 different fruit trees (lemon, cherry, peach, apricot, pear) and I've added a feijoa, a lime, and a few culinary herbs.

I also have a front lawn, which I haven't watered in several years, but comes back with the rain. I want to smother it permanently in cardboard, but that in itself is quite a lot of work that I refuse to admit I need to hire someone to get it done.

A friend of mine had a HUGE avocado tree in his backyard. He would hand us paper grocery bags basically filled to the brim with them all the time, because otherwise they would just fall off and rot in his yard.

His dog ate them all the time too, absolutely spoiled!

Likewise when I lived in Hawaii, my girlfriends grandmother had a mango tree the size of Tennessee and she'd give me big paper bags full of mangos. Best I have ever had.

I do miss this about living in a warmer climate.

There is also the opportunity to turn this scale of farming into a livelihood. Jamiah Hargins followed the SPIN-Farming system to start Crop Swap. Google SPIN Farming. There's a lot about it. It is being used in the US and Canada.

Yes, one of the main reasons to have a garden. I guess the next article will be "Fishing instead of swimming in the Ocean"

Where do you live that the majority of domestic gardens are used primarily to grow food?

Isn't that common around the world?

Not in the US

First, we need to come to a universal understanding of the term "garden". What the UK understands as garden would be considered the back yard in the US. Some people in the US choose to have a garden in their back yard while others do not. So for purposes of discussion, let's call garden the spot where you are actually growing plants for food as opposed to a flower garden.

Is that common with the stated definition? In the US, it is not especially if you add sustaining levels of production vs just hobby level

Is that actually how people use the word garden outside the uk?

In the US, garden is the area of the yard that grows plants. It is typically a small portion of the yard. The yard is pretty much any open space of the owner's parcel of land not containing the house or other structures. Also commonly used terms are "flower beds" or "plant beds". These are typically for ornamental plants vs food. Most people would consider a garden to primarily be for food plants.

For example, the Great British Bake-off has the tent in the garden. But no red blooded 'murican would consider that expanse of manicured grass as a garden.

Yeah possibly poor choice of words for an international audience. For non-brits, imagine I just said "additional, nature-y non-covered area of your place of residence".

It is in Scotland... if you are an 18th century crofter.

It's pretty common on earth that people grow food in proximity to their home and where the soil is fertile. It just takes an american to make it into an "Aha" moment, hence the snarky remark about fish and ocean. But there you go.

lol, I've been growing food-bearing plants in my backyard for about 10 years now. I plant jalapenos, tomatoes, bell peppers, watermelons, squash, zuchini, strawberries, eggplant and cantaloupe. I've grown maybe the equivalent of $100 worth of fruits and vegetables in that time. If I'm lucky I'll get three watermelons in a year. It's interesting to see and fun to do, but there's no way that planting vegetable plants is going to sustain you to any level on a typical lot.

Definitely not, but having fresh herbs veggies available is amazing. With herbs, I think it can be cheaper than buying them at the store (we normally waste tons of herbs if we buy at the store). With peppers and tomatoes, they just taste better :)

This year we may do squashes and eggplants ...

> having fresh herbs

That's true - there's nothing in the world that tastes like fresh-cut cilantro (definitely not day old cilantro). Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work to keep a cilantro plant from bolting.

I'm amazed that anyone pays supermarket prices for fresh mint. You can't stop it from spreading, it's essentially a weed.

We do this too. For me the garden has also been a gateway into preserving. This year, I put up enough tomatoes to last the year. It's not always cheaper than buying the cheap alternative from the store, but the quality difference between something home grown and store bought is huge.

In addition to the items you've listed, I'd add grapes/ muscadines, passionfruit (grows wild so cheating), fruit and nut trees (figs are easy if you keep them pruned), berries, tea, lettuce/greens, celery, potatoes, carrots, herbs. I used to hate gardening, but it's grown on me over the last few years. The only thing I don't like growing is squash really.

We garden a lot too. And it does produce excellent produce. But deep down inside I recognize that the farmers market has consistently better produce for -dramatically- lower prices, everything considered.

Gardening really is a hobby more than a practical life-hack. Although we did just get a hydroponic setup for greens in the house, and hopefully that can supply greens that are better and actually much cheaper.

If you enjoy growing your own food, go ahead and have fun.

If you think it can replace industrial farming, we need to have a serious talk.

Growing your own food is also called "subsistence farming". It's how many of the poorest of the poor survive. It's back breaking work to get just enough to survive, and in bad years you get to watch your kids starve to death.

One of the greatest and least appreciated miracles of the modern age is industrial farming, which produces huge amounts of food in small areas. Without it most of us 8 billion humans would die quickly.

You’re not going to grow enough food on your average American lawn to survive off of either lol

Depends, as soon as you get into the exurbs where plots of land range from 1 to 5 acres, you can start growing a significant % of your caloric needs on your land.

Not with lettuce or fruits, of course, but with potatoes/beans and gourds likely.

Sure you can but that’s not necessarily what people with large lawns are going for. Also a lot of the areas like that are completely unsuitable for growing food

That's true.

I'm told farming is very hard work though, especially without machines.

Raising chickens IS doable though, and should be more accepted

Growing some of your food on the soil sprawling across your property is not "subsistence farming" nor a silly hobby.

It's a social responsibility that can dramatically reduce the demand for industrial agriculture, which is essentially unsustainable when used as the only source of food supply. As it depletes nearby resources by overworking the land it occupies, it has to pull on an increasingly distant and increasingly expensive supply chain. And as with all industrial processes, its prospects for for maintaining peak efficiency at all times are infintessimal because industrial scale supply chains get disrupted in industrial scale catastrophes. It's extremely productive but also extremely brittle to both physical and social tumult.

As recently as WWII, well into the era of industrial agriculture, US production and land use needs were spread thin enough that its people faced rationing. Home gardens were encouraged as a way to improve both nutrition and morale for families during a difficult time for the country, and the feasibility of those home gardens benefited from what had then still been a widespread cultural familiarity with how to grow such gardens effectively. Hard times will come again, and having a diffuse, local, personal food supply maintained by people aren't just learning how to do at the last minute will make a big big difference.

Grow your own food because you care about those kind of things.

I guess its a nice idea but really what California needs is less NIMBYs forcing all housing developments to be detached houses with gardens, instead of affordable housing blocks.

Why not both? Imagine a world where everything is a dense housing block - that sucks. Some of us want to own some land and not be butted up right against their neighbor. Or have to hear the person next door fucking their spouse or blasting loud music. No thanks.

More housing needs to exist - but ALL housing does not need to be dense multistory developments.

>Some of us want to own some land and not be butted up right against their neighbor. Or have to hear the person next door fucking their spouse or blasting loud music. No thanks.

Just about everyone is like this, and hence why housing is such a nightmare situation.

"I want a nice home that is situated in a relaxing quiet personal space, that is a short commute from my well paying job, and an even shorter drive to restaurants and entertainment" - 90% of people

So maybe we try to create more of that type of living space?

To support a business (as employees or patrons), there needs to be a certain amount of people visiting. This number doesn’t evenly fit into a 1mi radius if everyone is on a 0.25-acre lot. So the radius expands, which means you can no longer walk; but public transit follows similar rules to businesses, there needs to be a certain ridership to make it make sense, which means we’re now primarily using personal transportation. Which is fine, bikes are fine, but we both know it’s going to be cars. Which means parking at both ends, inflating the distances further… so it’s a 15-minute-drive instead of a 5-minute walk to the nearest grocery store because the density just is not there.

You can’t make something that’s far away from other people and yet close to the things that need people to continue existing.

Self driving cars and cheap tunnels can solve this. Hopefully that happens some days. People are working on both (a lot less on cheap tunnels).

Yes, we should, but it's incredibly hard to get people (and employers) to move to some place that isn't established. And usually the locations where there is establishment have a good reason that they were located there and not where you are trying to move it to.

remote work is a thing

...for a minority of workers. Even hybrid is a minority too.

Modern apartment blocks have excellent noise isolation — the foot of solid concrete between me and my neighbour prevents nearly any noise from getting through. If I hear a sound, it’s from the traffic six stories below.

I live in a dense building and have never heard my neighbours music or their fucking.

>Some of us want to own some land and not be butted up right against their neighbor. Or have to hear the person next door fucking their spouse or blasting loud music. No thanks.

You could just not butt up to the very edge of your own lot, and everyone else can use their own as they wish. Another option would be to buy the lots around you and not build anything on them.

The thing with NIMBYs is that they want everyone else to pay for their desires.

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