Product Description

Gardening can be a political act. Creativity, fulfillment, connection, revolution--it all begins when we get our hands in the dirt. Food Not Lawns combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike build fertile soil, promote biodiversity, and increase natural habitat in their own "paradise gardens." But Food Not Lawns doesn’t begin and end in the seed bed. This joyful permaculture lifestyle manual inspires readers to apply the principles of the paradise garden--simplicity, resourcefulness, creativity, mindfulness, and community--to all aspects of life. Plant "guerilla gardens" in barren intersections and medians; organize community meals; start a street theater troupe or host a local art swap; free your kitchen from refrigeration and enjoy truly fresh, nourishing foods from your own plot of land; work with children to create garden play spaces. Flores cares passionately about the damaged state of our environment and the ills of our throwaway society. In Food Not Lawns, she shows us how to reclaim the earth one garden at a time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12986 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

From Publishers Weekly
For Flores, "practicing ecological living is a deeply subversive act," and while most gardening books do not include warnings that COINTELPRO "can and will...rape you," it is only because most gardening books do not encourage "guerilla gardening" after describing the basics of garden planning and pruning. More advanced topics range from integrating barnyard birds into a garden to getting more mileage out of the home water cycle to the benefits of a balanced insect population. The illustrations are amusing as well as helpful, and though the index is not extensive, the book, overall, is a much better read than the average gardening book, both in terms of range and entertainment value.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Certified permaculture designer Flores advocates living an ecologically friendly lifestyle by creating gardens. Following a foreword by Toby Hemenway (Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture), she discusses the identification of garden sites, the water cycle and water conservation, soils and composting, plants, how to save seed, project design, the fostering of community involvement, the inclusion of children in projects, the sharing of information, and activism. Many of Flores's ideas are for the extremely committed. She advocates dumpster digging, composting human feces, and living life without appliances like refrigerators. She also suggests growing food on land, not necessarily with the landowner's permission, and espouses gray-water conservation techniques that may be illegal in some communities. While growing your own food is a worthy goal, Flores doesn't always seem to recognize the hard work involved. She also doesn't expand on all of her ideas, but she does offer an extensive list of resources for further research. Flores has an engaging style and is clearly passionate about her subject, and her debut book provides an alternative viewpoint, but it will probably not interest mainstream audiences. Purchase as required." - Library Journal review by Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove Public Library, November 15, 2006.

"For activist readers who believe activism is a political pursuit, FOOD NOT LAWNS: HOW TO TURN YOUR YARD INTO A GARDEN AND YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD INTO A COMMUNITY offers a different viewpoint, maintaining that growing food where you live is a key method of becoming a food activist in the community. Chapters advocate planting home and community gardens with an eye to drawing important connections between the politics of a home or community garden and the wider politics of usage, consumption, and sustainability. Another rarity: chapters promote small, easy changes in lifestyles to achieve a transition between personal choice and political activism at the community level, providing keys to change any reader can use." - Bookwatch/Midwest Book Review, December 2006

Review
"More than just another gardening book, Food Not Lawns provides a road map for ecological and social literacy in our own backyards and neighborhoods. A quiet revolution is taking place across the country centered on small plots in urban and suburban areas where food is being produced, jobs grown, and real community developed. This timely book serves as an important guide, providing a source of both information and inspiration for one of the most hopeful and exciting movements of our time." —Michael Ableman, author of Fields Of Plenty

"Flores has an engaging style and is clearly passionate about her subject..." - Library Journal review, November 2006

"Food Not Lawns is a wonderful book expanding on the idea that we can do more than just protest but that we have the power to create the world we want. Food Not Lawns is a practical guide to feeding ourselves and making positive change. In a time of so much hopelessness this book reminds us that there really is so much we can do. I encourage everyone seeking peace and well being to dig into this rich loam of information. It will inspire you to grow food not lawns." —Keith McHenry, Co-founder of the Food Not Bombs movement

"Food Not Lawns is radical (rooted), subversive (underground), and seeded throughout with treasures that will sprout into savory, beautiful flowers. Don't just buy this book: Read it. Don't just read this book: Do it. Grow a garden. And let the weeds grow; they're good medicine."—Susun Weed, Wise Woman Herbal Series

Customer Reviews

Food in your own yard
This is a interesting lots of help starting you own garden in your front yard or back.

Wonderful Book
This book has so many great ideas that I just had to have it. She makes many great "eco" points that had me going "ah, I never thought of that." I'm very glad I purchased this book.

Impractical and Incomplete Advice
I was very excited about ordering this book. I envisioned it would gave step by step, practical advice on how to transform my suburban yard into a lush garden. I was very disappointed, however, to find it full of advice that was either too vauge, or too complicated for the average home owner.
Ms. Flores starts off the book preaching about environmental concern. She could have spared the reader, since anyone who would buy this book is already concerned about their eco-system. Several pages of the beginning of the book give spacey, loose instructions on observing your community and yard space, as if the average reader has unlimited time to stare at her yard, and go on excursions for resources.

Flores goes on with her irrational ideas, giving several suggestions which are ILLEGAL, like diving into dumpsters and stealing off of thrift store lots. She also devotes quite a few paragraphs to setting up a water conservation system, which starts with recycling bathwater, which BTW, she also mentions is illegal in many cities. There's no in-between or alternate suggestions given. Flores, instead goes rambling on about elaborate modifications that the average person would not do to begin a garden.

This book might be good for those who have extensive knowledge of gardening, lots and lots of free time, and advanced mechanical skills, who want an all-or-nothing approach, but it offers very little for a beginner.