Front Yard & Neighborhood Gardens

What an adventure to head out and explore one’s city, see the gardens, and meet the people behind them. My favorite way of doing this is by bicycle.

Front Yard Vegetable Gardens I’ve Seen and Loved

Last modified on 2011-08-01 04:03:58 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

I like seeing seeing vegetable gardens anywhere, but I particularly like seeing them in front yards. For one thing, lawns use huge amounts of water, and make no sense in our climate here in San Diego, and with water a valuable and imported resource. Xeriscaping or vegetables make more sense. And why not grow something you can eat? It’s also a lot of fun, and relaxing, and spiritual (to me).

In any case, I’ve started photographing them when I see front yard veggie gardens on my bike rides.

These folks have some nice raised beds (made from metal – never seen that before). Very neat and clean. I see some tomatoes, squash and onions:

Squash plants in front of the wall, spilling towards the sidewalk. I like how big and vigorous squash plants are.

Another view of their raised beds:

I was almost home when I spotted this garden on my street. I’ve seen it walking by before. This time I decided to stop and talk to the man watering it. His name was Doug.

He was happy to talk about it. He told me about the tomatoes his sons gave away. I liked how the cucumbers were growing up the railing.

He re-seeds his lettuce.

A salt-of-the-earth kind of guy, he had raised beds, “slapped together from cheap lumber” he said apologetically. He said they will break down eventually since they aren’t pressure treated, but will last a few years. He had some tomato plants in a corner that were holdovers from last year. I told him about how they are actually perennials. He also had some pepper plants that were in a second year, and he’d pruned back.

I told him about how it had taken me over 2 years to get a plot at the Golden Hill Community Garden and there’s a long waiting list. Doug had a good idea: turn some of that area in that open field above Florida Canyon over near the city’s nursery, into a community garden. The city could actually make some money – charge fifty dollars a plot.

This garden is on Dale Street in South Park. I like the nice healthy purple bean vines, and the corn:

Beautiful Zucchini Squash leaves:

Beans and tomatos thriving:

Here’s how it looked before the garden (Google Street View):

Saw some corn and tomatoes growing in the front of a house near Thorn and Granada: