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A week or so ago, I came across this New York Times Sunday column, “I’m Done Mowing My Lawn” by Ronda Kaysen. It’s a pretty good “pushing back against convention” piece and why obsessing over lawns is bad for all kinds of different reasons. I nodded along as I finally got around to reading it today. Then I got to this paragraph:
Every summer, I imagine a different landscape, one that I do not have to mow. My sunny front lawn would be a great place to grow a vegetable garden: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and maybe some chard. But if my dandelions raise eyebrows, imagine the reaction I would get to a raised garden bed just a few feet from the sidewalk.
Seven years ago, we decided to tear up about half of our front yard to plant flowers and vegetables. It wasn’t because I had some kind of problem with a lawn; if anything, I am a product of my upbringing in suburbia and my admiration of well-manicured golf courses. We did it mainly because we were tired of seeing the front yard– the only part of our lot that gets full sun all day long– go to waste. I remember at the time hearing a few stories of affluent Detroit suburbs where growing vegetables in the front yard was some kind of code violation, and I also remember my mother worrying it would be tacky.
It’s never been a problem. At all. If anything, it’s been a great opportunity to informally chat with neighbors walking by while Annette and I are out their weeding or something. People always compliment us. Little kids look for the dragon Annette put out there and sometimes pick cherry tomatoes. It’s a cheery exchange, which I think also says a lot about my neighborhood, too.
This year’s version of the garden is going to be a bit more modest because of a busy summer. The ideal/generally agreed upon time when we’re safe from frost is the week after Mother’s Day, but we’ll be gone that week (China, of all places– more on that later I am sure). Plus we have some other travel plans and getting Will ready for the next post-UM steps in his life. So this year, I’m keeping it to a few tomatoes, some pole beans (along with some creeping flowers that I think might not make it), kale, and sunflowers. I planted a flat of marigolds with the (probably misguided) thought that maybe it’ll deter the critters a bit. After we get back, I’ll plant some basil, maybe some other things, some more flowers. perhaps some more herbs.
We were thinking about a move to Ann Arbor in the next year or two; we decided last summer to not do that for a variety of different reasons, and one of those reasons is I don’t think I’d want to move to a neighborhood where it was against the rules to plant a few tomatoes and such in the front yard.