America is a country where the lawn is king. In suburbia, many take pleasure in having a front landscape that consists solely of lawn broken up, perhaps, by a tree as a specimen or some annual or perennial border. This does not have to be the norm. Some homes in Asheville NC are moving toward a more environmentally friendly and sustainable approach for their front and back lawns. They accomplish this by using edible landscape design. Why?
Food Security: You cannot eat a lawn. You can. However, enjoy the bounty of a landscape that incorporates vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees. In these hard economic times, it is good to know you reduce food insecurity.
Food Safety: You know the source of your food. You understand what measures you have used to minimize damage from various insects and other pests.
Environmentally Friendly: Your edible garden is environmentally friendly in several ways:
- It requires no shipping to reach you, therefore no energy is wasted.
- Energy is not expended in fuel spent on large planting, harvesting, and production processes.
- Agricultural production requires significant amounts of water. Your garden does not
- Many crops are produced using herbicides and pesticides that can accumulate in the soil with toxic results. Your edible garden does not.
These are significant reasons. What holds back many homeowners is a fallacy. They believe an edible landscape design in Asheville NC will be ugly. This is far from the truth. The purposeful planting of edibles can produce an aesthetically pleasing landscape.
