Edible yards have grown in popularity since 2008, when architect and artist Fritz Haeg released his first book, Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn. The idea is to trade your water-intensive, fertilizer-dependent lawn for a sustainable, food-producing garden – a food source for your family and an educational demonstration for the neighborhood. If you’re still imagining rows of cornfields lining your driveway, check out these inspiring projects and how they were able to successfully integrate a productive garden without sacrificing aesthetics.
Shown above the jump, left to right:
1. & 2. Located near Los Angeles (an area that has plenty of lawns yet receives little rainfall), this Edible Estate was established in 2006 and serves as a friendly and inviting gesture to the neighborhood.
3. & 4. Completed in 2007, this lawn in Maplewood, NJ was one of the initial Edible Estates projects and shows that the idea can be successful in suburban neighborhoods.
5. Submitted by Re-Nest reader Ali in 2009, she spent six months overhauling her yard in an effort to lead a more sustainable and cost-effective lifestyle.
6. Another Edible Estate (via Dwell), this image shows that you don't need neat rows of similar plants to grow food. The grouping of plants in unexpected and reads more as a garden than a mini-farm.
7. This edible front yard (by Seattle landscape architecture firm Fresh Digs), is good example of mixing edibles and ornamentals and was profiled in Ivette Soler's new book, The Edible Front Yard.
8. If there's anyone that would be a proponent of the edible yard, it's Michael Pollan. Pollan and his wife Judith Belzer worked with landscape designer Bernardo Lopez to transform their 600 square foot front yard in Berkeley into a functional and comfortable garden space (via SFGate).
9. The Dervaes family (of Urban Homestead fame), converted their Pasadena front and back yards into edible gardens with over 300 kinds of produce!
10. Last but not least, even the White House has jumped on the edible bandwagon. In 2009, Michelle Obama coordinated the planting of an 1,100 square foot edible garden on the South Lawn of the White House (via Inhabitat).
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I love this idea :)
How cool is 1&2? And 9 isn't too shabby, either.
We had a front yard veggie garden at our previous home. It was so much fun to create and tend! We also got so much food out of our little plot of land.
I hope to create another one at our new home when we have a bit more free time.
I like this in theory (very much), but isn't there a problem with raising edible crops so close to the road? Emissions, etc.? I suppose the back yard isn't that much farther away, but having the house in between at least lets me feel like we're not near the street.
Then again, maybe tomatoes grown near traffic give you superpowers.
I grow quite a large garden in my back yard and have been toying with the idea of creating an edible yard in the front as well. However, I've always wondered what to do with an edible front yard in the "off" season (winter) when crops and veggies die out.
If you have deer anywhere nearby, like I do, fuggehdaboudit. This is just a big all-you-can-eat salad bar for them.
I would love for more research to be done with these posts. The Dervaes family is not of "urban homesteading" fame. They hijacked a term (over twenty years after it was first utilized) and are now claiming it as their own AND behaving aggressively toward others who dare use it.
@pedalpowered, thanks for comment - the reference was to their website and not that they necessarily coined or invented the term. (We even wrote about it a few months ago: http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/urban-homesteading/urban-homestead-dervaes-family-trademark-battle-139731)
My parents have had a full garden covering the front yard at my childhood home since before I was born. There were toads under the strawberry plants, and flowers and fresh food all summer. This is a really great way to live, let me tell you.
I planted bulbs in my front yard's flower bed last fall for the spring and when it grew up, I also have squash growing (and I def didn't plant THAT!)!