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Re:Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave by mminer237 on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @02:00PM (#37485008)
I don't have the time to garden my entire yard, but even if I did, it would come no where near providing half of my sustenance. It takes several acres of farm to feed one person.

If I did nothing with it, it would naturally be grass, albeit extremely tall grass interspersed with thistles, burrs, and hemlock, which are far more negative than grass.

I don't spray it, remove anything from it, fertilize it, or use any ICE equipment to cut it, so that seems like a bit of a strawman.

And a lawn is extremely utilitarian. If you eliminate them, you eliminate a host of positive externalities: they're very aesthetically pleasing and good for mental health, they provide space to do activities, especially for kids, which promotes a healthy lifestyle, they're good for socializing, they're required for dogs, etc.

At least in America, we have no shortage of space. I don't know what people's problem is with people having a little recreational area.

Re:Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave by golem14 on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @02:44PM (#37485760)
"It takes several acres of farm to feed one person."

I think this may be a bit high, my math may be wrong.

an acre of lentils for instance should yield about 5-8 quintals (say 500-800kg) of lentils a year. I imagine if you really care about that one acre, you may get higher yields still.

800kg of lentils would be about 2600 kcal/day for a year.

Rice would yield substantially more (but not everyone lives where rice paddies can thrive)

Corn: 1 acre yields 170 bushes / 5000kg, about 50,000 kcal/day.

Now, you need to eat other stuff as well to avoid malnutrition, but if you don't have meat, 1 acre seems to be more than enough per person. If you have to (zombie apocalypse, not because it would be convenient).

Caveat: IANAF, cannot provide any agricultural advice.

Re:Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave by pezezin on Thursday September 14, 2023 @09:59AM (#37509158)
I kid you not, this is the first time in my life that I have seen the word "quintal" in a forum post.
Re:Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave by nemo on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @03:31PM (#37486679)
Lawns replace existing habitat with a monoculture of a non-native plant. The untended yard you labeled as "negative" supports a local habitat and ecology - those native plants support insects, reptiles, birds, squirrels and other wildlife. The lawn is a far more sterile space, an ecologically near-dead zone that only support grubs, ants, and a few undesirable insects but primarily is lost habitat. Lawns are among the drivers of habitat loss that are driving species loss in the US. During a time of global warming where droughts are becoming increasingly more common we've got lawns wasting that water. Lawns are objectively harmful to the environment on many, many fronts.