Front yard vegetable garden

Last summer we watered just enough to keep our big corner lot minimally green and weed-free. It took a lot of water, and we felt guilty about it. We need to re-landscape with a lot less grass, but there is only so much time and money. All winter long, I wondered. Could we grow vegetables in the front yard without setting off the neighbors' hillbilly alarm? Turn a big patch of water-hogging lawn into a drip-irrigated vegetable patch?

There is a whole front yard garden movement, it turns out. "Food not lawns," etc. I found pictures online of neat and ornamental front yard vegetable gardens that gave me courage. We bought some natural willow fencing, for a tidy border and to keep out the neighborhood dogs and wildlife. We decided to try a modified version of a lasagna garden, where you layer newspaper right on top of the sod and then put soil and organic amendments on top. The newspaper blocks light and kills the grass, but slowly decomposes and makes rich, worm-friendly soil underneath. No digging or tilling.

We marked out a 20' X 13' area, and put wet newspapers right on top of the grass. The size was determined by how much fencing we could afford.


20 bags of aged manure went on top of the newspapers.

R was a big help, but she eventually wandered off to draw on the driveway with her chalk from the Easter Bunny. She says this is a picture of "me as the Queen of the World."

Here is why there have been no posts recently

We have been busy arranging to have two tons of dirt dumped on the front lawn.

More pictures and an explanation shortly.

May 4

In the end, I could not carry off the pea brush.

In theory, I like the idea of pea brush. Overlapping birch saplings thrust into the ground behind your peas, so they will twine around it as they grow. But I think to carry off pea brush properly, you need to be either an elderly and crotchety Scottish gardener, or better yet, a grand lady who employs one. My pea brush was ridiculous from the beginning. It wasn't tall enough or sturdy enough and we don't have any birch trimmings.

So I took it down and put up some netting strung between two bamboo poles. It seems to be working fine. The peas are growing, and in the foreground the radishes and arugula planted from seed are popping up. Back toward the peas, there is spinach/mustard and some mesclun, chives and sorrel and ruby chard.

Spinach/mustard and peas.

Looking the opposite direction, from the bed in the back of the yard. The bed in the foreground has, left to right: space for the bok choi seedlings I am hardening off; rainbow chard; Texas sweet onions; and bunching onions. The bed in the middle has butter and salad bowl lettuces, and some cress, Japanese mitsuba and carrot, spinach and radish seedlings just coming up.

Mesclun from transplants I grew under lights indoors. It made it through two deep snows and freezes.

So beautiful. I wonder why the rabbits aren't bothering it. We see wild rabbits in the yard every day, and so far, I haven't seen any trace of them in the garden.

Under the bushes all around the backyard is this shade-loving vinca groundcover.

Red tulips pop up here and there. I wonder how long ago they were planted. It's been so long since anyone took care of this yard. We did find a long-handled bulb planter under all the leaf debris last summer.

Peony buds ready to open.