I found an article about a student research project on this very issue at Bates College. I emailed the chemistry professor who advised the student and asked the very questions you pose about disposal and ingestion. It sometimes takes a while to get answers from the college prof types, because they are busy, but often they do write back. I’ll let you know what I hear. I know that the student’s project involved raised beds.

I also wrote to Phil Lane and I am confident that that email will engender no response because Phil can’t even acknowledge an in person hello from me. That aside I asked what biomass he is using since I had heard about miscanthus, which is grown in suburban gardens and is reputedly a very promising source of cellulosic ethanol. (Phil knows all about this stuff, and he can really talk a blue streak of technical language that is over everyone’s head – oh I am always so impressed, blinded with science, as it were. These guys who speak tech and acronyms just make me weak in the knees, and the best part is at the end of their loud, fast, passionate and interminable speeches, they usually want you to agree even though you couldn’t understand half of what they said and couldn’t be recognized to pose your question. These guys make me want to sit in a tiny chair with my knees up near my shoulders and raise my hand like I was in kindergarten.) But that’s an aside about behavior in the civic space…

I would imagine there might be a security issue (because it is so tall and could easily hide folks who need to hide), but growing this stuff in lots away from natural water (creeks, brooks, streams where it is easily transported) could be an alternative to grass cutting – that is, if there was a use for it. It is not native however, so you have to be careful with it.

It does seem to be drought tolerant because a lot of it grows in tree lawns in my neighborhood. It is also a curiosity to me about grass cutting and building topsoil.

Now in Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I read that when cows bite off the grass, a similar volume of root on that grass also dies. This makes room for the microbes, worms, etc. to move in and do their good work at improving the soil, so it would follow that cutting grass is good (not too much as in overgrazing), of course, this sustainable farmer is not growing these lawn grasses, but more of a meadow mix for the cows). So it is possible that on many of these lots where the city has been cutting grass for many years there is some topsoil made simply from that process. My friend Christina Magiorra who is involved with City Fresh or Maurice Small who is the City Fresh guy might be able to address this as they are finding what she termed very rich soil in the city of Cleveland and many lots with no contaminants. This is just so curious. I also know that when these guys build on lots in the city (not Habitat, but the other “developers”), it is common practice for them to remove the topsoil and sell it as part of their expense recovery. So if they can sell good topsoil, then there must be some good stuff to plant in. The business of digging up lead laden soils is dangerous, so adding topsoil to the lots is what happened in the Bates model. Maybe someone could address this… Zebra??? Do you know???

So I like the idea of Guerilla Gardening, and I wonder if we might get the CDCs involved with the practice via neighborhood groups. East Cleveland seems a good place to begin, and I might be able to convince my friends who live on West 45th street with their lead laden lawn to plant some sunflowers and mustard in their front lawn. I agree that lots filled with sunflowers and switchgrass would be more beautiful than the short cropped grassy squares we see throughout Cleveland in the summer. Mustard is beautiful, too. Though this would have to be posted – "DANGER toxic plants NOT A MUSTARD FIELD" with skull and crossbones so that neighbors do not harvest it and eat it with ham hocks and cornbread.

This could be a project like Not a Cornfield in LA (pictured above) and we could resurrect the county’s greenprint as a guide. Here’s one example on the east side.

These are good musings Norm and good cautionary feedback Zebra. Let’s keep expanding on this idea.