Hoes Replacing Lawn Mowers as Favorite Tools for Front Yard

Maybe it's the water restrictions. Maybe it's the shaky economy. Dotted through our neighborhood are houses where lawns have been replaced by vegetable gardens.

According to Time magazine, the trend was sowed in the summer of 2005 by Los Angeles architect Fritz Haeg. He saw the manicured front lawn as an American icon that cut across politics, social classes and economics. But he also saw it as out of date.

Vegetable gardening is certainly not new. The Victory Gardens of World War II were encouraged to relieve pressure on scarce food resources. In 1943, about a year after the campaign began, Americans had planted 20.5 million Victory Gardens, which produced a third of all the vegetables eaten in America that year.

What's different about the food gardens I've been seeing lately is:

They are planted in the front yard rather than being hidden in the back yard.
They often replace the traditional lawn.
The layout of these gardens is often more ornamental than farm like. The plants become objects d'art or sculpture.

There are many blogs or books such as Nan Chase's Eat Your Yard: Edible Trees, Shrubs, Vines, Herbs and Flowers for Your Landscape, that explain how to make the transition. It's really not that complex.

I once tried to make a map of the areas where I walk my dog noting which had fruit trees or herb bushes for urban foraging. It was a good reminder to watch for the changing seasons and the places where fruit was going to waste because no one was harvesting it.

Perhaps my next challenge should be the edible balcony garden.

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Hand-Knit Trellis Now Ready for Climbing Foot-Long Beans

Just as the "June" gloom is starting to burn off, I finished my knitted trellis for the garden. It completely surrounds one of our bamboo tripods, with space at the bottom for tending the romaine lettuces growing within the tripod. It's knit out of nylon twine on US 35 needles. While the nylon has no stretch (the way a wool yarn does), the huge gauge has loads of give. The piece was knit flat with ties attached along one edge. It is tied to the tripod along one leg. One some early samples for a knitted plant trellis, I experimented with lace patterns. They look lovely, but I realized two things. One, once the plants grow up the trellis any knitting pattern is lost. Secondly, the plants and leaves need space to grow in and out of. I used a pattern for a shawl: k1, yo, k2tog and then repeat. I got lost a number of times: the yarn-overs drifted over other stitches on occasion. As this was a speed project that won't be visible ones the beans grow over it, I didn

Know Your Soil For Best Garden Results

I've always taken soil for granted. It was there. You put seeds into it. You put water on it. Plants grow and produce flowers, fruit or vegetables. Gayle Weinstein, author of Xeriscape Handbook; A How-To Guide to Natural, Resource-Wise Gardening , takes a different view: “Soil . . . acts as a highway between life and death, land and atmosphere, plants and animals.” It stores water, air and nutrients and makes it possible for an exchange of elements and chemical reactions to occur, she adds. She describes soil as being animal, vegetable and mineral combined. Here are six tests Gayle recommends for getting to know your soil. Grab a shovel and a quart jar. Dig up two cups of dry soil two-to-six inches deep from the areas you want to test. Gather a glass of water, dish washing detergent and paper towels. A soil pH kit, a meter or litmus paper will be needed for the final test.

Determinate vs indeterminate: why does it matter?

When Karen and I planted our 2020 garden, we made the one mistake you never want to make with tomatoes: we didn't check whether the plants we bought were determinant or indeterminate. Our assumption that the cherry tomato plants would be small (small tomatoes means small plant, right?) and the romas would be big, was 180 degrees wrong. The Great Green Goddess of Gardening was on our side, however. Karen has been able to stake up the indeterminate cherry tomatoes -- and the determinate romas have plenty of string fencing to grow on. I've been asked to write more about the differences between indeterminate and determinant tomato plants. Since I clearly needed to review, I'm glad to do so. In simple terms, determinate plants are like bushes or shrubs; indeterminate plants are like trees. Determinate plants are genetically set to grow to a certain size and stop. Indeterminate plants will keep producing stems, leaves and fruit as long as they get enough water, light and warmth.

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