We have reached the "lawns" unit in the Master Gardener certification class I am taking, and I am only half joking when I say I should ask if I can skip this unit on religious grounds.
My religious/spiritual beliefs are pretty amorphous, but I have one opinion approaching dogma, and it is: Turfgrass lawns are an affront to God. If God wanted us to have monoculture turfgrass lawns, monoculture turfgrass lawns would exist in Nature. They do not. Prairies and other grasslands do, but they're self-supporting ecosystems with significant diversity.
But instead of arguing this, I decided to do the reading, because I figure that if I know what keeps turfgrass healthy, I will also know how to destroy it.
Some observations.
I do have *some* "lawn," partly to furnish grass clippings for use as mulch and partly to placate my neighbors, who don't want their turfgrass touching my garden. And, apparently, my incredibly lazy approach to "maintaining" it is also keeping it healthy.
I only mow when I fear a visit from the ordinance guy, so my lawn is usually between three and six inches. Turns out this is exactly the right height to keep turfgrass healthy no matter what the season. I bag clippings when I need them as mulch, but otherwise I blow them right back onto the lawn. Turns out this is a good way to fertilize a lawn and control weeds.
No wonder my lawn stays green longer than my neighbors'.
Gremlin, who weirdly seems to want? turflawn??, asked me how to help the thing look better without costing him a lot of work. I explained the above. He is Extremely Skeptical.
Turfgrass lawns appear to produce some kind of disease in the brain akin to capitalism: We think the way to make them "perfect" is to invest a ton of money, time, money, energy, money, effort, and money, when actually the way to keep them healthiest is to Mostly Leave Them Alone. Even Gremlin, who is otherwise king of the "do nothing, win" approach, doesn't believe me when I tell him to mow it to a height of three inches, sharpen his mower blade, blow those clippings back onto the lawn, and otherwise Leave It Alone.
You can't eat turfgrass. Sheep can, but you can't.
Know what you CAN eat? Many of the "weeds" on this list of "weeds" common to turflawns:
MSU Extension: Turfgrass Weeds
I eat many of these every spring. Of course, you can't eat them if you're spraying them with herbicides. Also you wouldn't have many of them if you didn't cut your lawn so short. Just saying.
Also, should there be ongoing food price spikes and/or shortages - idk, maybe because there comes an ongoing shortage of diesel fuel and the chemicals used to make commercial fertilizers, maybe because some senile grandpa started a dumb war in Iran or somewhere like that, idk just spitballing here - you'll have a hell of a time getting edible food out of a patch of land you've been spraying with broadleaf herbicides, versus one that just grew whatever until you decided to sheet mulch it. But what do I know? I just grow food out of a "lawn" that grew whatever until I sheet mulched it.
A loving God is trying to fill your turfgrass abomination with completely free food that is chock-full of nutrients and chock-empty of fat/salt/sugar/things that will shorten your lifespan. WHY DO YOU REJECT GOD'S LOVE.
Fight me.
Lawns, in the "look at my vast expanse of flat grass, I am better than you" sense, are a colonialist import from England. It's the English of the 18th century who saw lawns as a status symbol and evidence of personal economic success. Insofar as we continue embracing them, we continue to wear the shackles of English colonialist rule.
Throw off your chains, my American brethren, and consign the turfgrass lawn to Revolutionary oblivion. Only then can you truly embrace the blessings of liberty.
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