A story about how front yard gardens are being mowed down by cities precisely following their zoning rules make me think:
Nothing is simple.
Many things have more than one accurate point of view.
And when you begin to create change, nothing is real until you can show its impact and it’s worth to the larger community.
And that for decades, food growing has been relegated to the rural communities, so much so that when urban and suburban citizens join or rejoin the good food revolution, they will often suffer from outrage from neighboring lawn champions or from outdated zoning requirements.
And yet, something troubles even me when I see a farm with dozens of different tools rusting along the back wall or when I see immaculate gardens with nary a weed. I think of what Gary Snyder said in an interview in the 1970s (and I’m paraphrasing from memory):
farming isn’t backbreaking if it’s done right. The problem is that we bought entirely into the 19th century well-ordered industrial European agricultural model which doesn’t necessarily fit everywhere.
So we can all learn and change. Farmers can simplify and share their plans, both to gradually bring those neighbors to a deeper understanding of what natural gardening is and to reduce the backbreaking nature of their dawn to dusk life and the amount of tools that it takes to keep that farm looking unnatural.
But it takes time.
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