It is December in New Hampshire and today it is sunny and 65 degrees!  If you’re from another part of the country ......... yes this is very much unseasonably warm!

Here we are preparing for winter, in fact on Saturday we’re supposed to get snow, but today, I feel like gardening.

We really don’t mind our home being surrounded by green, growing grass but we also don’t follow the American obsession with perfect looking, golf course style lawns.  We mow, albeit not regularly, rake when necessary, but that’s about it.  I’ve read that American households use way, way, too much fertilizer and pesticides on their lawns, much more by square foot than is used in commercial agriculture. This creates a ‘chemically dependent’ lawn, the runoff pollutes groundwater, the pollution kills beneficial bugs and birds and other species ....... and the horrid cycle continues. 

Dan and I, we welcome the natural world and its micro-ecosystems.   Nature does know best; why mess with it?  We don’t want Stella rolling on pesticide laden grass, nor do we want to walk on it.  We welcome the dandelions and clover and other weeds, and we don’t fret over yellow grass due to grubs.   The grubs feed the robins, blue jays, woodpeckers and other birds, which in turn eat bugs that would invade our gardens.  The skunks also eat the grubs and frankly I’d prefer they not hang around because of the alpacas!  But oh well.

So folks, dig up your lawns!  Plant a garden!  I realize we’re all starting winter, but here’s a couple of links for you all to start planning gardens for next year:

 http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/Square-Foot-Gardening-Food.aspx

  http://www.squarefootgardening.com/index.php/The-Project/how-to-square-foot-garden.html