Super Eco

Photo credit: sarah gilbert

Our front yard is a total mess. A foot back from the fence and its border of daffodils is a three-foot-deep hole that extends to the sidewalk that encircles the front porch. Passers-by ask, "are you making a pond? A swimming pool?" Nope. We're scooping in wood chips and compost to be a healthy, organic base for the crop of potatoes, carrots and corn we'll plant in a few weeks. We have a big back yard, but there never seems to be enough room for all the crops we'd like to plant.

I should make a yard sign: "As seen on TV." According to CBS News, and my local news too, more and more families are turning their manicured front yards into vegetable producers. CBS calls me "at the forefront of a fast-growing movement in these hard economic times: getting rid of the sacred front lawn and replacing it with the urban farm." Shellie Bailey-Shah from KATU News says we're part of the "lost generation"; our moms and grandmothers had gardens, but we never did.

Until now. A stroll through any neighborhood in Portland will reveal newly-installed raised garden boxes, or an apartment complex's shrubbery that's been torn out to plant lettuces and peas. In the yards of trend-setters, artichokes and sunflowers gone to seed are portents of a bountiful summer ahead. Calling lawns "wasteful, useless spaces," productive urban farmers can produce so much in a small space that they have extra to sell to restaurants and urban locavores. A friend has started a CSA, grown and harvested on a an empty lot in his neighborhood; another business in Portland sells produce from a network of backyards to co-ops, gourmet groceries and restaurant kitchens. Want to get your hands dirty in your own urban farm? Get going with our how-to start a vegetable garden.