Growing Food Instead of Cutting Grass Mowing

Convert your front lawn into a gardenscape. No more mowing! Instead, you can grow edible plants that are also lovely, including fresh garden vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruits! Grow instead of mow a front yard vegetable garden!

Who decided that grass should be the “standard” house front?

Think about it for a moment. How is it that we — as a society — came to prize water and cutting grass over growing and harvesting food?

There are some homeowner associations (HOAs) that don’t allow front yard vegetable gardens

Sure, an expanse of fresh mown green lawn is beautiful, and who doesn’t love walking barefoot in the grass? But in the end, that expanse of land requires time, energy and money to maintain while giving only aesthetic pleasure in return.

You can’t eat grass, and some people are even allergic to it! So instead of time spent mowing, you can be tending garden plants that save money by producing food for your family. Instead of watering grass that needs mowing again each week, you can water edible plants that give sustenance and save money while adding beauty to your yard and neighborhood.

According to an EPA partner program, WaterSense:

“Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for nearly one-third of all residential water use, totaling nearly 9 billion gallons per day.”

Lawns are the most irrigated crop in the US, using 9 billion gallons of water per day.^[1]https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/pubs/outdoor.html

REFERENCE: WaterSense

Cover Image Credit: Photo by Rebecca Sweet of Harmony In the Garden.^[2]https://harmonyinthegarden.com/portfolio/

Ornamentals Can Be Edible Plants

A couple years ago I was in Portland, Oregon with my family. Portland is a beautiful green city, with luscious gardens and abundant trees and flowers. We drove and strolled through neighborhoods with front yards like award-winning magazine covers. Even then, it was mostly ornamental trees and flowers.

However, there are many edible ornamental plants to choose from toward creating a beautiful front yard vegetable garden.

Plant attractive edible plants and turn your front yard into food producing, landscapes!

Gardening as a Family

Instead of fighting traffic to shop for dinner after work, you can head home to enjoy fresh air while peacefully plucking vegetables. From garden to plate… farm-to-table, or farm-to-fork, is a thing.

If you have a family, even better! Family time can include the healthy activity of tending the garden together. It’s a great time to unwind tending the garden in the fresh air, enjoying nature while sharing about your day with each other.

See kids in the garden.

Children and gardening go hand-in-hand because kids love to play in the dirt and get excited to see things grow.

Profit from Yard Gardens (if it’s Legal)!

We’ll get back to front yard gardens in a minute, but it’s important to share the topic that is of the greatest interest to many in the  Gardens All community: How to make money and even earn a living from gardening your yard or land.

Beyond feeding your family, some people are actually profiting by selling their produce! Some are earning six figures per year on less than 1/4 acre. How’s that for some additional income?! Whether your garden earns a few thousands extra per year or replaces your job and allows you to work full time farming at home… this could be something you’ll want to investigate.

An excellent book on this topic is MiniFARMING, by Brett L. Markham.

Illegal Front Yard Gardens

First, make sure you don’t live in one of the few cities where it’s illegal to garden in your own yard! When we first heard this we couldn’t believe it to be true, so we looked into it.

From our research there doesn’t seem to be a complete list of cities that have banned gardening. We dug deeper and found an article that cites US cities where front yard gardening is now illegal.

If it’s illegal in your state to front yard garden, then you might want to jump to our article on Home Owner’s Associations – HOAs.

Cover Image Photo: Credit Rebecca Sweet

How to Create Beautiful Front Yard Vegetable Gardens

by Ivette Soler, author ‘The Edible Front Yard‘

4 Tips for Choosing Edible Front Yard Garden Plants

1. The entire plant must have a pleasing form — it cannot stand on the merits of its flowers (or vegetable or fruit) alone.

2. It has to give me at least two reasons to plant it (such as color and form, or texture and seedpods).

3. Its leaves must hold up for the entire growing season. Some edibles have leaves that are susceptible to mildews, or are such heavy feeders that the foliage is just worn out by the end of the season. In the backyard, you can deal with it. In the front yard, plant something else.

4. If you must plant less ornamental edibles in the front yard because you have no other suitable space, pay extra attention to your hardscape. It’s a lot easier to overlook wilted cucumber leaves if they are supported by a beautiful trellis

The successful edible front yard garden all comes down to the right plant in the right place.

by Ivette Soler, author ‘The Edible Front Yard‘

5 Edible Plants for a Front Yard Landscape

An edible front yard, I decided, was the solution.  Like many people, we have a sunny-ish front yard and a shady back yard. The trick with planting food in the front is making it look good, as Ivette Soler emphasizes in her excellent book, Edible Front Yard.

NOTE:  We live in zone 7a of the mid-Atlantic region in Washington, D.C.  You can find your hardiness zone in this footnote link.^[3]https://www.garden.org/zipzone/index.php

~Amy Suardi of Frugal-Mama.com 

Amy’s Top 5 Favorite Front Yard Vegetable Garden Plants

1. Arugula
2. Basil
3. ‘Pink Lemonade’ Blueberries
4. Pomegranate, such as this dwarf bonsai pomegranate
5. Strawberries

Consider the benefits and uses of strawberry leaves too.

“Kids are more than twice as likely to eat fruits and vegetables if they grow them.”

~Mary Quattlebaum, author, Jo MacDonald Had a Garden

Find more of our favorite ornamental edibles for front yard vegetable gardens in this article on foodscaping, as well as in this list of our articles on edible plants.

Additional Articles You May Enjoy on Edible Plants for Front Yard Gardens

Plant strawberries in an attractive strawberry pot.

If you are considering growing strawberries, you might want to spend a few extra dollars to buy established strawberry plants. It’s not so expensive when you consider how much it could save in buying strawberries over the summer.^[4]https://www.frugal-mama.com/2012/06/16-edible-plants-that-are-thriving-in-our-front-yard-garden-and-3-that-are-not/

Are you growing in your front yard?  If so we’d love to know more about what you’re growing/grown.  Feel free to share on the Facebook Page!

For more on this topic, see foodscaping ideas for more options for putting your yard to work for you.

To see more amazing, award winning gardenscapes by landscape design artists, Rebecca Sweet, author of this photo, visit Rebecca’s site, HarmonyInTheGarden.com^[5]https://harmonyinthegarden.com/portfolio/

How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden

In this video, Rob Greenfield transforms a plain grass lawn into a flourishing front yard vegetable garden.