Our Summer's Bounty in Pictures!

It's September, and I'm posting some end-of-season pictures of our edible garden. The new beds we installed in the front yard are thriving. I'm simply amazed at how they filled out so quickly, even with our cool Bay Area summer weather:

The  "Stella Blue" Hokkaido squash in the foreground grew so big it's growing over our hedge in the front yard out to the sidewalk! And the bed on the other side of our front yard is just as lush with vegetables and flowers:

Out front we grew winter and summer squashes, Emerite string beans (bean teepee), Cranberry and Scarlet Runner beans for shell beans, basil, tomatoes, strawberries, Japanese eggplants (two types), Corni di Toro peppers, and lemon cucumbers- all in the beds you see here. Here's a pretty picture of a typical harvest for dinner (okay, I cheated- the carrots and Poblano peppers are from the backyard!):

I have to show a picture of the squash "escaping" from our front yard and out towards the street:

And here's a close up of the beautiful, blue-green, almost mature squash:

The  Stella Blue Hokkaido is a kabocha (Japanese) squash- I've never seen this type in the grocery store. You can bet I'll try saving some seeds!

I hope this convinces you that edible landscaping in the front yard can be attractive, as well as a provider of abundant, healthy food for your family and neighbors.  Besides sharing with my neighbors, I've been taking the extra bounty over to the Community Services Agency in Mountain View, which provides food for the needy in our area. I will definitely be planting extra from now on to share!

Gardens are naturally giving: in beauty, healthful living, and in healing the planet.
The more gardens the better!

Our Edible Neighborhood and the Edible Landscaping Tour

The highlight of our gardening efforts was the summer of 2009  Common Ground's Edible Landscaping Tour, (see my first blog post: Transform your garden, transform your life) which inspired us to new heights in embracing our home as a microfarm. We participated by volunteering to show our garden, and so did our friend and neighbor, James. I highly recommend it! It's a one day event and benefits Common Ground, which deserves our support for the many positive benefits they provide to our community. (Full disclosure: as a result of the fun I had on last year's tour, I'm a volunteer on this year's tour team).

Photo: Enjoying the edible garden with tea time under the grape arbor.

The tour is now in its fourth year, and features ten homes in Palo Alto and surrounding cities (we live in Mountain View).  It takes place on Saturday, July 24 this summer. Last year, we went on a pre-tour so that we could see the other participating gardens and I was simply amazed at the creativity and variety of of the gardens. It was a lot of fun to talk to the gardeners about their experiences and vision, and to gather ideas. Many homes also kept chickens, and some had beehives. All used organic practices and composting. Additionally, some had systems to recycle gray water for the garden. I was thrilled that all of this was going own in our area, and the tour is a fantastic way to discover and connect with this community. I also really enjoyed showing our garden to visitors and telling them how our ideas evolved, and the special challenges we tried to design around (we have two large dogs).

Our friend James inspired us into action to grow fruit and vegetables when we began to plan our garden remodel. His method was subtle but high impact. My husband and I are foodies, and James began leaving a variety of freshly picked goodies from his garden on our doorstep: bunches of fragrant basil, lovely ripe tomatoes and tender summer squash. We had originally planned to  redo our front and back yards with native plants and plants that thrive in our Mediterranean climate. But James woke us up to the obvious- why didn't we include spaces for vegetables and fruit?

Photo: James and Claudine devote their front yard to growing fruit and vegetables for their family of five in Mountain View, California.

Photo: compost bins in the front yard provide fertilizer and soil amendment conveniently located near the vegetable garden.

I admired James and Claudine for their unapologetic approach to microfarming in our  suburban neighborhood, where at least 90% of the homes have traditional landscaping with lawns and ornamental plants. I admit I was hesitant at first to turn our front yard into a vegetable patch. We would have to install beds for planting, since the area our lawn once occupied is covered by a dense network of roots from our fifty year old magnolia tree. James successfully turned his yard into a lush cornucopia of edibles, but could we? I also hoped to promote creative solutions for landscaping without lawns by example, so we took time to plan the design around features, such as flagstone walkways and the planting beds as a  solution. I'm rewarded by the many compliments I get from passersby while I'm puttering around out front.

I'm now very excited about the changing aesthetic in suburban landscaping, which has to do with wise water use, reducing waste that goes to the landfill, and creating connectivity to what we eat. And did I mention I love gardens?

Photo: Our front yard with a planter for vegetables built with "green bricks"(Integrity Blocks).

The right side of our front yard (below) with new planting beds installed in June, and already yielding veggies in late July. A variety of culinary herbs and flowers have been planted around the flagstone path.

 In our own neighborhood in Mountain View there are increasingly more homes moving towards edible landscaping. I've posted some examples of front yards below that are within a few blocks of our home:

One of the Furuichi brothers (the brothers are co-owners of the Los Altos Nursery) has planted citrus, cherry and avocado trees, plus squash and tomatoes in his front yard.

This detail view of a side yard on the corner of our block has a mini-orchard with citrus, apple and a pear tree espalier.

Another corner house side yard devoted to vegetables and fruit. This one has planting beds.

As James once explained: his primary motivation for growing vegetables was an "evil plot" to trick his three young children into eating more vegetables (it worked). So if you are intrigued and or seduced by the thought of growing your own, go on and give it a whirl. Be the James on your block. You just may end up transforming your life and your neighborhood.

Garden Features We Love Living With

Two garden features we love are the pergola, which functions as an outdoor dining space, and the raised bed that we assembled from a kit for growing vegetables (dog-proof!).

Pergola (aka arbor):

The fellow who built a fence for us turned out to be the go–to-guy for building the pergola we envisioned (Peninsula Fence) :

Our ex-gardener (we no longer needed his services after we remodeled) laid the flagstone on sand, with some planting soil on top so we could plant wooly thyme in between (note: some types of sand are not compatible with planting).

We put a round tile-topped table with four chairs underneath the pergola. The roses were preserved to provide green “walls” with lovely flowers spring through fall, and grape vines quickly grew to start filling in the top. We’ve spent many a pleasant day since then having breakfast, lunch or dinner under the grape vines!

Modular Raised Bed Kit:

We needed a space safe from our lovely greyhounds for growing edibles. Maui and Zippo love to race around the backyard, which resulted in removal of the raggedy lawn we inherited with the house. They did us a favor and jump-started our backyard remodel, which included getting rid of water-wasting lawns, planting native and low water plants, and spaces for growing vegetables and herbs. We also added some young fruit trees and blueberry bushes.

We are not carpenters, and we both work during the week, so for us it was a great choice to order this kit from Gardens to Gro :

We liked that they are a mom 'n pop company, and that it would not have to ship too far (from San Diego to SF Bay Area). It came with wire mesh to lay down to foil gophers, and also with a watering system. It also has a cute gate, to keep out the pooches. We got the 20 inch high beds to minimize back strain while planting.

The beds have herbs planted around them, and they have provided fresh food year round. We are in our second winter with the beds, experimenting with what grows best and tolerates our frost, and we look forward to our third spring and summer coming up! By the way, we use no pesticides, and we are committed to keeping our yards free of that stuff- besides, we have found it's really not necessary. Common Ground, our local organic gardening center in Palo Alto, provided lots of inspiration and resources.