lspichkin

I had no idea that in some parts of this country it is illegal to have anything but a lawn growing in front of your house. It sounds crazy to me, but it's true. That must say something about the bubble that I live in...

That's why I love this story about Karen Baumman, a Sacramento teacher and mother of twin boys, who had the nerve to plant a vegetable garden in front of her home. She was actually fined $800 by the Office of Code Enforcement and told to remove her offending veggies. So, Karen fought back.... and won! Here's more of her story at SFGate.com.

This movement to plant flower and/or edible gardens instead of maintaining a lawn has been gaining speed, and with good reason. According to www.heavypetal.ca "the lawns in the United States consume around 270 billion gallons of water a week - enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables, all summer long."

"Food Not Lawns" by Heather Flores was published in 2006 and a number of organizations promoting this practice have popped as well, such as Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates, "an ongoing series of projects to replace the American front lawn with edible garden landscapes responsive to culture, climate, context and people." The folks at Edible Estates have actually been going around the country and picking a home in each of the USDA growing zones for a font yard to edible garden conversion. Sounds like a great idea to me!

lulugardens

Wow. That's quite a story. The area where I live does allow more flexibility in planting and you see more varied yards than just plan old grass. But still, people don't seem to stray too far from the traditional font yard. I read a great book a few months back, "The Unprejudiced Palate: Classic Thoughts on Food and the Good Life" that was very inspiring. Angelo Pellegrini, an English professor who immigrated from Italy to Seattle and published this book in the 1950's was definitely ahead of his time in his philosophy about gardening and eating. He skipped the grass and used all the land he had to grow edibles and other both useful and decorative plants. Of course this made cooking with fresh ingredients that much easier.

After reading this book I decided to move beyond my little vegetable garden and started planting in my front yard and along my driveway. So far, we've gotten artichokes, potatoes, mint, green beans, tomatoes and pineapple guavas out of this experiment. It's been great! And so far, no complaints from the neighbors. (Sharing your bounty with them does wonders in this regard...)

Saturn

Food not lawns kinda makes sense. It would help everyone ease a little dependence from mass growing operations.

cia007

Good information! I am really really tempted to rip out my lawn, but our house had expensive landscaping put in by the previous owners, and given the neighborhood, I am afraid it would devalue the home if I did it....am pondering looking for a place with more land....but if things get bad in the economy, the lawn is toast!

smgardener

a return to victory gardens?

ejagno

Food for thought......................front lawn produce is much easier for passer by's to help themselves to your bounty, especially if it's not fenced in. I put all of my flowers, shrubs, and "pretties" in the front and moved ALL edibles to the back thanks to neighbors who help themselves.

Just a few months back I came home early and saw a woman picking all of my neighbors pears and apples wiping the harvest clean in his fenced in yard. When I asked her who she was she said that she walks by daily and saw that they were ready to be picked. That was it...she did not have permission.

The nerve of some people just never cease to amaze me. And keep in mind folks that the more the groceries go up as the economic outlook is looking worse by the day, the more likely people will "help themselves" to your hard work.

The one thing that you don't hear of the Victory Gardens is that theft was a major problem. I just read an extensive article about how they rigged noise makers to warn them of garden theives but alas the theives averted this by waiting for stormy nights or until folks were at church to make their heists. It was very common problem, to the point that the gardens were never left totally unattended, moved closer to the back doors of homes becoming known as the kitchen garden and finally "fenced in".

I hate to sound negative but just last summer my Dad lost an entire harvest of Okra at the hands of a neighbor who felt it was their job to pick what he grew. They did it again with his mustard greens. He finally exploded and told them that their acre was the same size as his and could produce just as much if they'd actually make the effort and do the work necessary.

fygar

The town I'm from is fairly laid back. I believe they have a few moderate laws on exactly what you can have for trees in front. also, you can't grow anything between the road and your (their) sidewalk. I don't mind so much as it helps with the over-all look in the neighborhood. Past that, I don't think they really care what you grow in front, as long as the neighbors are cool with it.

On a real quick side note, it sucks to have neighbors (especially ones you've never seen) pick your goods. I have a pear tree that I got a whopping three pears off of this year due to everyone picking everything at night. A couple drive-bys did have enough courtesy to ask, in which I gladly let them take what they want. This year, a sign is definetly going up. grrr!

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lulugardens

Interesting...theft is not something that I really thought about. I guess it really is something to consider before planting in highly visible areas. So far, I haven't had any problems with people pilfering my goods, but I'll keep this possibility in mind if I expand my garden.

ilovegardening

This sounds like a good idea to me as my front lawn is mostly Bermuda grass and looks horrible right now. When I moved in 12+ years ago, there we're no rose bushes in my front yard. Now there are 19. I have a corner lot and have them planted along the sidewalk right around the corner. They look great when they're in full bloom! I'll have to take a picture this year and post it. My goal this year is to separate the rose bushes from the rest of the lawn as they are surrounded by grass right now, which makes it very hard to mow my lawn. I'd really like to raise my lawn behind the roses to separate the two areas more; give my yard a kind of tiered look. I don't have alot of money to do this so any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks!

Terrance.

Durgan

The last place where I lived, the backyard was mostly shaded by mature neighbor trees. For some reason I wanted to grow watermellon, so dug up about 16 square feet of front lawn and grew watermellon, and a couple of pumpkin. People use to walk their dog, and this growth became a great conversation piece.

The city removed a large tree from my front tlawn, just on the city property boundry. I Put a large round culvert metal coupling around the hole left by the partially removed stump, and filled to about two feet with soil. In this I planted asparagus. When the asparagus was allowd o grow after the harvest. the beautiful fern type vegetation had no end of compliments.

After about six years, I moved to a place with a large yard, so it wasn't necessary to utilize the front yard, which is mostly in shade anyway.

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