So, your landlord and your neighbors think it's a bad idea to put your garden in the front yard? That's alright, I say put your garden where the sun is. If that happens to be the front yard, then so be it. The rewards you will reap from all your hard work will definitely be worth the effort. And if you have enough harvest to spare with those nosy neighbors, then they might just give you some slack.

Just think of the fresh vegetables and herbs for your dinner plate, tomato sandwiches and extra tomatoes to share with friends and neighbors, and herbs to flavor meals instead of using salt. Besides the obvious benefits of having plenty of fresh food to eat and enjoying the sunshine while tending your garden plants, there are other reasons to dig a garden in place of a grassy lawn.

Grassy lawns do have their place, like in Britain. Really, what I mean to say is that most of the United States is not suitable, climate-wise, to grow a green grassy lawn. Our ancestors crossed the seas in search of new lives, but they also brought with them what they knew. From the United Kingdom these people knew about having a nice green lawn so they tried to establish the same here.

The problem is that many of us are trying to force that square peg in the round hole. Grassy, green lawns won't happen in much of the US without some artificial means. We need to fertilize and water the grass until it grows too tall, and then we mow it down. All to be repeated for the next week, and the week after that, and so on through the spring and summer months. Maybe that's 15-20 weeks of actively tending the lawn.

If you enjoy tending the lawn, that is one thing. Personally, for the amount of time it takes to have a green, weed-free lawn, I'd rather spend that time tending a garden. The rewards are much greater. I can enjoy the sunshine, stay active, and I usually have plenty of fresh food to share. I also know that I'm not spending as much money on fuel and chemicals as the lawn-boys, and that makes me feel good to be less dependent on petroleum products. That's right, gas and oil for the lawn mower, leaf blower and trimmer, and pesticides and herbicides all have their start as petroleum oil. We all know where that comes from and the problems our dependence on it causes.

You may be thinking that gardeners use chemicals, too, and they do, but they don't have to. Ever hear of organic gardening? We have techniques to overcome our reliance on chemicals by gardening organically. For example, we can plant our favorite vegetables using companion planting, which is where one type of plant is planted next to another beneficial plant. One may draw pests from the other and so we avoid using pesticides. That is why you'll see marigolds in the vegetable garden and parsley among the tomatoes. Marigolds deter rabbits from the garden lettuce and parsley attracts the wasp that kills the dreaded tomato horn worm, a voracious pest of tomatoes.

Probably the biggest thing to overcome in all this is the mindset that front lawns should only have green grass. Sure, it looks nice, but is that what really matters? If we can convince people to trade in their artificially green lawn for an organic vegetable garden, we can save money on fuel and chemical inputs and at the same time, pollute our planet less by using fewer petroleum products. The more people who have a connection to the earth, the better it will be for the whole planet. Gardeners are more likely to share their food and knowledge, they're more likely to protect the land, and they make connections with other people by doing so. Organic gardening in the front yard is a win-win situation for people and the earth.