Why You Should Turn Your Lawn Into a Food Garden _ One Small Step _ NowThis

This was grown on a lawn. This was literally just a lawn about a year and three months ago. Lawn with grass and then I turned it into this giant garden. This is actually my first garden, basically. The perfect lawn is an American pastime. We love our lawns so much they take up 63,000 square miles in the U.S., which is roughly the size of Florida. We mow, fertilize and water them. But what if instead of using those resources and that time and that money to make our lawns the perfect monoculture, we actually grew something like food or habitat for animals. So I want to know, is there a better way to use our lawns? To find out, I visit Rob Greenfield, a community activist in Orlando, Florida, where he's teaching his neighbors how to convert their lawns into food gardens. And then I pay a visit to one of those neighbors to see how their garden is growing. I'm Lucy Biggers and this is One Small Step. The costs associated with keeping our lawns green are pretty steep. Americans use roughly seven billion gallons of water every day to irrigate them. That makes lawns the single largest irrigated crop in the country. And it's not just water. In 2012, Americans used roughly 59 million pounds of pesticides on their residential properties. And we can't forget the millions of tons of fertilizer we apply each year. The EPA estimates 40 to 60 percent of the fertilizer we apply to our lawns can end up in our drinking water, lakes, streams and oceans. Not OK. Not to mention, lawnmowers are loud and annoying. Who hasn't had a Saturday morning in the summer completely ruined by the sound of a lawnmower? With pesticides, fertilizers and gas guzzling gadgets, lawns just aren't sustainable. That's why we came here to the neighborhood of Audubon Park in Orlando, Florida, where growing food on your lawn is a common sight. That's because in 2013, a couple successfully fought for their right to grow a front yard garden. And now they're thriving in this neighborhood. And more could soon be growing across the state. That's because the Florida State Senate just passed a bill that protects the right to grow front yard gardens. What was the effort that you had to take to take this from a traditional lawn to what we're seeing now? It wasn't very challenging. We're talking some cardboard, some mulch, which is just wood chips from a tree, and some soil brought in, some compost. And that took a lawn to a garden. Within three or four months, it was producing five or six hundred dollars worth of food every month. Wow. And I know a lot of people in America are obsessed with their lawns and they want to keep them perfect. And they water them, they fertilize them. Do you think that this is any more effort than keeping a green lawn? I'm dealing with some major diversity here. So I do think a lawn in many ways is easier. But of course, it's worth it. I get to eat 50 different plants and I only put in a little more work. And I've already produced thousands of dollars of the food out of it. This uses a lot less money and a lot less water than a traditional lawn. The money that I do spend is actually returned tenfold. So the five or six hundred dollars that I've spent has turned into five or six thousand dollars of food that I don't have to buy at the grocery store. Growing food, it's great because it actually helps your garden to do better. If you have pollinators, it's shown that you can have up to a 50 percent increase in food production by bringing in pollinators. So you'll see it's full of both honeybees, native bees, native wasps. There's tons of beneficial insects. And the reason they're here is because this garden is full of flowers and native flowers. The one small step people can take is to plant something. One small step for anything in sustainability. I think planting something and growing your first bit of food is one of the most revolutionary things you can do, period. I'm so excited to check out this garden, try some food. Can we like eat as we go? There's all sorts of things we can munch on. All right, let's do it. Growing your own food in a garden isn't new. During World War One and World War Two, the U.S. government encouraged Americans to grow their own fruits and veggies as part of the war effort. They became known as victory gardens. By 1944, there were an estimated 20 million victory gardens in the U.S., producing 40 percent of the fresh produce consumed in the country. If we did in the past, we can do it again. I want to show you this pepper plant first. This has produced over a thousand peppers since I started. There's probably 300 peppers on this plant alone right now. From one seed? From one seed that I just stagged from a friend's garden. This is produced for the last year. This has been putting out peppers. Can I eat this pepper? Is it spicy? You look like nervous. I'll do it with you, but I don't know how this is going to go. I think we should do it. Cheers. They're somewhat hot. We might have to take a break. OK, good. If you want to grab a carrot, grab the greens and just yank it. Oh, my gosh. Look at that thing. So amazing. So good. Yeah, there's few greater things than pulling a root right out of the ground. I've never done that before. Yeah. This is celery. Oh, my gosh. So what do I do? Just go in there and break a stalk off. Oh, gosh. Oh, God. Cheers. More flavorful than the grocery store. Way more flavorful. It's like denser and sweeter. Yeah. I've never eaten healthier than I have in the last 30 minutes. Growing your own food can help fight climate change by reducing your carbon footprint. With a garden in your yard, zero gas has to be burned, transporting the food to your plate. Rob's garden was so impressive, but also a little intimidating. That's why I'm so excited to check out the garden of Chloe Destine. She took one of Rob's free gardening classes last year, and now she's become a gardener in her own right. It's so beautiful. Thank you so much for having us. Thanks for coming. So when did you decide to start turning your lawn into a garden? I actually thought about having like this magnificent lawn, and then I thought, you know what? Why grow grass when I can grow food? The sod, the seed, the fertilizer. I've spent thousands of dollars on this lawn, and it still didn't look right. So I was like, ditch the lawn. Ditch the lawn. We're going to plant some food on here. And you took Rob's gardening lesson? I sure did. That was my first course that I ever took, and I went. I liked his method. And I think a lot of people are intimidated by gardening. So what would be your advice to like the beginning gardener? Start with maybe a seed, like the seeds that you eat from just the fruit that you eat. Just start with a little small plant and see if you can do that. Then move forward. So did this used to be grass? All grass. This time last year, grass. This time last year, grass. Wow. This is my garden slash food forest. And what about this pretty tree we got right here? This is a tree from Walmart. Walmart tree. And this is an orange tree. You can get a tree like this. Walmart, $25. And you may have some fruit this year. These are raspberries. And as you can see, they're already fruiting. These are strawberries that I planted. These are my eggplants. Yeah, as you can see, I've got a little eggplant on here. Since you've been growing your food, has it changed your perspective in other aspects of your life? Yes, I think I've become more calmer. Really? Yes, more calmer. Whenever I'm stressed at work, I think, you know what? When I go home, I can go in my garden. I can sit in my garden with my dogs, run around, check on my plants. Well, your whole yard garden is so beautiful and it's so peaceful back here. So thank you so much for having me. Thank you. No problem. And I can't wait to see what your garden looks like in another year. It's going to be amazing. Awesome. It is so cool that our lawns can feed us and make our environment better. After all, our lawns are part of nature and not just a mantle that's meant to look perfect and pretty. This whole experience has opened my eyes to the potential of lawns and gotten me so excited about the future. That's all for this week's episode of One Small Step. Thank you so much for watching. If you liked it, please hit subscribe and we'll see you next time.