Frank McDonough, a botanist with the Los Angeles County Arboretum, readily admits that estimating what families might save on water bills by putting in a drought tolerant garden is almost impossible. To be sure, drought-tolerant plants can thrive on a fraction of the water required by a traditional lawn.
If you’ve ever gone out to buy fresh herbs for a recipe, you’ll immediately understand why it makes sense to grow your own. Tiny packets of not-so-fresh thyme and oregano cost $1 – $3 in the market. And if you made the mistake of buying more than you could immediately use, your herbs would almost certainly spoil before you could use them in another meal.
Growing food is one of America’s favorite pastimes, with roughly one in every three households either growing fruit and vegetables at home or in a community garden. If you’re among the green-thumbed masses and want to make your garden pay, it may be worth taking a look at crops that provide the best bang for your buck.
When I asked Tony Kienitz, author of The Year I Ate My Yard, how I could keep birds from boldly poaching my blueberries, he calmly opined: “You need a snake.” I started to stammer something about liking my family more than my blueberries when he clarified: “A plastic snake.”