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Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

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Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#311

Post by hinkley »

_qwfv wrote: post #25

Getting rid of our lawn and growing other stuff has been amazingly fulfilling. I have fresh produce most of the year, I've got honeybees and bumblebees and mason bees coming around. I have to do a lot less maintenance, and when I do it's more varied and interesting. Everything from fruit trees to berries, flowers to vegetables, herbs to herbal teas like chamomile. Strongly recommend looking at what will grow in your…

In the PNW, mowing your lawn is a serious logistics problem because mowing wet grass is a titanic pain in the ass, and the grass is pretty much wet for half of the year. I'm kinda surprised there's as much grass as we have.

Most other yardwork activities can be done in the damp, or even in the rain (hello REI/Patagonia). Gardeners will tell you never to dig in wet soil, but the clay content in coastal soils is so low in many areas that it's a non-issue.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#312

Post by hinkley »

xnyan wrote: post #299
utopian3 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We get a lot of rabbits.. How do you keep them out of your produce?

I live on the edge of the woods. Tons of deer, rabbits, etc. The only thing that 1) works reliably for me and 2) is safe and ethical (so not poison or the like) has been an enclosed wire mesh fence. I resisted this solution for a long time even though my neighbors warned me that a fence was the only workable solution, but it's the only thing I've found that really works in my situation and I wish I had done it sooner…

I've seen at least one person claim to solve the deer problem by building a covered chicken run around the outside of the property. Deer get discouraged by the depth of the fence moreso than the height. Presumably the cover saves them from raptors.

Probably works better in a square lot than a rectangular one.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#313

Post by hinkley »

Pfhreak wrote: post #44
larnmar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since having kids I’ve been realising that a lot of the things in life that other people do, that have never made sense to me, suddenly make a whole lot more sense in the context of kids. With a kid, I’m suddenly super grateful for my little lawn.

Huh, interesting. I have a kid and I'm grateful we gave up our lawn. She plants in the spring, harvests, cooks, and preserves with us. She's excited to make pickles, jam, squash, pumpkins, corn, etc from things she's grown and tended to. She even got to pick out some of the flowers and make her own little square. Watching her step out to grab some blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries is one of the best feelings…

Our youngest lamented the lack of a front lawn to lay on. But I honestly don't believe that between the damp and the dog walkers she would have actually done the activities she had in her head.

You have to mow it. You have to mow it every week. You have to mow it every week even if you're tired, or sick, or it's hot, or it's cold, or it's rainy, or your friends are playing a game, or you had a sleepover. No excuses, no exceptions. You can't mow it too early in the morning, or too late in the evening. You can't stop halfway through and do the rest later (back yard/front yard perhaps, but not half of the front yard). The grass does not care what your reasons are. It just cares that you didn't mow it. If you don't, it punishes you. Sometimes the neighbors do, too.

In theory they understand this, in practice there are plenty of other activities that result in a litany of renegotiations. Grass. Doesn't. Care.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#314

Post by thaumasiotes »

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #225
thaumasiotes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get back to me when you can actually show that my world depends on a variety of insects contained within a single square mile.

Culture matters. You don't exist in a void. You, anyone you live with, anyone who sees your yard, and anyone who hears your views on it all carry a personal culture. You are responsible for yours and who it infects. Is yours a sustainable one? If not, you're likely programming the world to die off. It's not only about you. It's about the ripple effects of you and a greater understanding of responsibility in the face…

The sum of everyone's yard is still insignificant to the issue. Bugs in yards aren't the bugs that might theoretically matter. You might note the perfect symmetry between the claims "you need a robust population of random bugs in front of your house" and "you need a robust population of random bugs inside of your house". Nobody needs either of those things.

Most of the world is in neither one of those places.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#315

Post by AmericanChopper »

onion2k wrote: post #66
AmericanChopper wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everything you find aesthetically pleasing is a primal instinct. The high-and-mighty-ness of this comment really beggars belief. I hope that somebody like yourself could confidently say you’ve never wasted your time on something frivolous like companionship or sexual needs.

Saying we like lawns because our cave-dwelling ancestors saw them as good hunting ground is fine, but to extend that to saying that's a reason why we should have them is not. We can ignore that particular primal urge if giving up lawns is good for the environment. The same goes for every other "primal instinct" - we've evolved to the point where we can make a conscious decision about what we do regardless of what our…

Well the simple explanation of “because I like it” is a good enough reason to have something. If you look at it analytically enough, a lot of the things we end up liking can be traced back to some primitive leftovers of our evolution as a species, and may otherwise appear to be quite irrational. You obviously can’t act on every impulse you have, so the list of irrational resource allocation decisions any particular person makes will reflect their own personal priorities. But pretending you’re somehow above this is just downright absurd. Perhaps the aesthetic pleasures of keeping a nice green lawn don’t matter very much to you personally, but your life is most certainly full of your own personal collection of frivolous and irrational decisions that you made purely for your own satisfaction.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#316

Post by Jedd »

gdubs wrote: post #303
Jedd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... would be to cut out bovine meat. The somewhat ludicrous figure provided at that link - of 15,415 litres of water per kilogram of meat - is oft' cited by vegetarians and vegans, but doesn't bear scrutiny. CAFOs are undeniably bad for everyone (the land, the animals, and the consumers) and while they doubtless skew the stats, those grossly artificial environments are clearly not locking up 15 tonnes of water per…

It takes a lot of crops to feed animals, and those crops depend on enormous amounts of irrigation. The vast majority of agriculture exists for animal feed. I don’t know the exact source of that number, but I’d guess it included the water involved in growing those feed crops, not just what a cow drinks.

What number?

CAFOs are objectively horrendous things. Feeding grain to ruminants is also horrendous.

Using lots of fresh water, pesticides, herbicides, and fossil fuels to grow grain on high quality land -- rather than allowing grazing animals to graze on marginal lands -- is a highly dubious practice.

Nothing about that cycle is good for any of us, any of the animals involved, or the soil or water resource management.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#317

Post by perl4ever »

smichel17 wrote: post #201
perl4ever wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what I want . Your second sentence is about when you defer to experts and when you don't, so apparently you too are your own generalist. There are no "expert generalists"! If you wanted one, you'd need an even more general generalist to choose which generalist was trustworthy...

Would that not be a generalist expert? -- specializes in determining whether a generalist is trustworthy.

My point is, the comment saying "I pick and choose" doesn't make any sense in context, because it's referring to choosing whether to use an expert, not delegating the choice of experts to someone, i.e. a generalist. You can choose between experts all you want, and since none of them are generalists, you are still the generalist.

I think my comment was misinterpreted, but it's not clear how.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#318

Post by sp332 »

sp332 wrote: post #237
DrRobinson wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see the point of this argument, isn't this true for basically _all_ water usage?

Not really. If you put water on plants, most of it evaporates. Example: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable...

Late edit: sorry DrRobinson, I lost track of the thread and wasn't really disagreeing with you.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#319

Post by freepor »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #315
onion2k wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying we like lawns because our cave-dwelling ancestors saw them as good hunting ground is fine, but to extend that to saying that's a reason why we should have them is not. We can ignore that particular primal urge if giving up lawns is good for the environment. The same goes for every other "primal instinct" - we've evolved to the point where we can make a conscious decision about what we do regardless of what our…

Well the simple explanation of “because I like it” is a good enough reason to have something. If you look at it analytically enough, a lot of the things we end up liking can be traced back to some primitive leftovers of our evolution as a species, and may otherwise appear to be quite irrational. You obviously can’t act on every impulse you have, so the list of irrational resource allocation decisions any particular p…

Genghis Khan raped thousands of women because he decided that “because I like it” was good enough reason to have it. When our desires cause harm to others we must restrain them.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#320

Post by morganvachon »

_qwfv wrote: post #25

Getting rid of our lawn and growing other stuff has been amazingly fulfilling. I have fresh produce most of the year, I've got honeybees and bumblebees and mason bees coming around. I have to do a lot less maintenance, and when I do it's more varied and interesting. Everything from fruit trees to berries, flowers to vegetables, herbs to herbal teas like chamomile. Strongly recommend looking at what will grow in your…

I haven't gone as far as you in my homesteading, but I do follow one of the suggestions Dr. Berenbaum made in the article: I don't rake the leaves in my yard in the fall, I let them naturally decompose. I've found this makes the grass grow much more naturally and results in a diverse insect and spider population.
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