As someone who lives in an ex-industrial city (Birmingham Alabama), I’ve always been worried about air pollution and tainted soil (there are superfund sites nearby). I feel like every thing would have to be above ground and covered. That seems like a lot of work. Should I be worried?
Yeah you should. Look into soil testing with your local city, county, or University Extension office. You send in a little sample of dry soil and they email you the results. It’s usually pretty cheap and will tell you if any soil is unsafe. My local library, for example, has sample boxes for free. Definitely a good idea for anyone in a place where lead paint could have been used, let alone other horrible stuff.
I can imagine a few reasons.
I have a dog, she needs some running around space in our yard, so we make sure she has it.
Otherwise we do have a raspberry… Thicket? In the corner of our yard, and some smaller raised beds along the edges. Every year the local squirrels steal the veggies we plant, but not the raspberries, no matter what we do.
Every year the local squirrels steal the veggies we plant
This has been my experience as well, along with raccoons decimating all but one season’s attempt at a water garden.
We get them all. Deer, birds, chipmunks. The entire garden needs to be protected by hardware cloth. The chipmunks got through the original chicken wire we had. We had to enclose the top as they climbed over. Plus the small birds eat any berries. A constant battle to be able to harvest anything.
When I first started gardening I had this idealistic view of, “I will just grow a surplus, if the animals take some I will still have enough.” Nope. They eat everything, to the ground. They can do it in one night. There are different pests that specialize in eating the seeds, the roots, the stems, the leaves, and the fruit. Deer will “sample” entire plants just to confirm they don’t like them. Squirrels will take a single bite out of every tomato. Bears will push down an entire fruit tree just to get one fruit. Energy is scarce in nature and these organisms aren’t fucking around.
Took me awhile to finally admit that barriers aren’t just nice, they are required.
Probably against HOA rules in many places.
Ok, but why?
Because of 18th century French aristocracy, no shit.
The real answer is because in America rich people buy houses, and then create HOAs in the housing deeds and contracts to force all future owners to maintain the house in a way that will increase the neighborhood property value forever.
HOAs exclusively fight to make houses more and more “valuable” since housing is a financial investment here
Thank you. So not having a proper garden increases the value?
Most older (white) Americans think having any sort of enjoyment or color in anything is “gay”. Hence why so many American die of heart disease, because eating an apple is basically like giving a blowjob.
Ismt that the universal question with moet things americans do these days? ;-)
Plenty of people have these things called “gardens”. You can grow food right in the ground with them. Fruit baring trees are also a thing people enjoy in thier yard.
Is your entire property filled with bushes or something?
We do tomatoes, tons of peppers, and blackberries. Baby avocado and lime trees aren’t fruiting yet. Someone ate our cucumber plants as soon as they sprouted.
Most people have both. A lawn is good to play on.
too busy eating avocado toast
americans already do this i see it all the time
We do? At least where I live I see mango trees all over, saw a longan the other day, there are loquats all over too, and until citrus canker there were orange trees in most backyards. At my old house we had loquat, tangelo, lemon, lime, carambola and bananas, and a papaya tree.
At this house we have lemon, lime, Valencia, and sugar bell citrus trees, a fig (all of these are dwarf trees) and a vegetable garden but all are in back. In front a small lawn, a few ornamental plants and sometimes I plant bulb fennel out there.
Probably need a permit and license
Wait…
Grass lawns as a concept came from Europe as a symbol of wealth. If you could afford a large green lawn, you were likely rich.
Rodents mostly
It’s a stupid reason. Historically, if you were a peasant and had been granted access to land, you grew food or herbs. If however you were a lord, you got your food from your peasants. You had no need to grow your own food. So they could afford to grow lawns as a sign of wealth.
This has transferred across into the modern psyche. Lawns are a way of saying “i’m so rich, i don’t have to worry about sustenance. In fact i’ll throw money at it to maintain this slab of green rather than have it provide food, or shade.”
@Turturtley @Confidant6198 Its worse, because, actually, even if they wanted to, most Americans are under the tyrannical rule of a Homeowners Association (talk about liberty huh) that forces them to plant grass, and can fine them a shit ton of money if they do otherwise
This is the correct answer. So many US’isms are bourgeois / aristocratic imitation.
Cars / wasteful transportation, lawns, sprawled out cities, high amounts of meat consumption, vacation homes / timeshares / exotic vacations, having servants, etc. These are things that are only possible for countries with huge amounts of land and resources, and not sustainable or doable for most of the world.
It could also be seen as rising standards of living, and aristocrats were optimizing their advantage before the standards rose for everyone due to cheap energy availability.
Saying people consume meat to mimic the rich is a little silly.
It’s funny how this has come full circle - many people garden (in their back yards) to show they have the free time to do so.
Because having a big yard of grass that you have to mow every week while using up gasoline is the American dream and a flex for some reason.
Littering your yard with food attracts things like rats, raccoons, squirrels, etc, which destroy property and infrastructure, spread disease, and cause injury to people and pets. I’m not saying I’m against fruit trees, but I do understand people who are. It’s a legitimate concern. Some areas even have things like boars or bears which are extremely dangerous.
I’m also curious with the way you can sue people in the US what would happen if someone becomes sick after eating one of your fruits. I imagine it varies by state.
Trees in general do all of those horrible things you mentioned.
Dropped fruit all over the ground really encourages rats though.
My mum got a house super cheap when I was young because it had a “rat problem” it also had a peach tree in the back yard that the owner didnt pick up after. We removed literal garbage bags of peach pits from the roof space and crawl spaces of that house and garage.
Chopped the peach tree down (it wasnt a healthy tree anyway) and the problem basically disappeared in days.
And I’ve found loads of walnut shells in nooks and crannies. I’m not going to cut a black walnut down.
Buildings need to be built properly to exclude animals regardless.
Not possible. Nature finds a way.
I lived in a small city (~30k) in the middle of rural texas growing up, and our main wildlife was deer, squirrels, possums, foxes, armadillos, javalinas, and birds, although we also had the occasional ratsnake or raccoons or skunks.
We didn’t really have fruit trees, but we did have plenty of pecans and several gardens of all kinds of veggies, a fig tree that never seemed to bloom, and some assorted berrying bushes.
We never experienced these plagues of infrastructural damage and diseases and hurt pets (4 cats and 2 dogs in total) that you describe. Idk where people get these horror stories from.
I suppose it can happen, but that’s probably in areas where such a yard is the only safe space for wildlife and people don’t live with nature as a daily part of their lives.
I s2g cityfolk act like getting brushed up against by a non-domesticated critter will give them an instant prion disorder.
that’s probably in areas where such a yard is the only safe space for wildlife and people don’t live with nature as a daily part of their lives.
I think this is the case. In urban areas you get the rats and such nesting directly in people’s homes because there’s nowhere else for them to be, thanks to the absolute miles of pavement. When I’ve lived in more rural areas you would see a lot of animals all the time, but everyone was pretty much minding their own business. I think habitat destruction is the real problem.
People are afraid of everything now. If you let your kids make their own way to school instead of driving them they may be kidnapped and murdered by the nonces hidden around every corner in your city, but also they may grow up to be independent self-reliant people.
Reading this made me even happier I don’t have to live there
This. Fruit trees are loads of work that most amateur gardeners don’t know how to deal with them or have the time to deal with them. Gardening and farming is a shitload of work and was only made cheap and easy through the marvel of modern technology. You don’t just plant shit and get to eat lol
The 50s happened.
And for whatever the fuck reason, they wanted houses like the ones found in pre-1789 France
