2025: The Year of The Front Yard Farmer
It's been a couple of years since my last book...what now?
The prices of everything these days are breathtaking. Like jumping off of a cliff. Back in the day we used to make jokes about Whole Foods supermarket and call it “Whole Paycheck supermarket”, now every shopping experience in almost every store is a whole paycheck. And forget about it if you are purchasing organic, that’s more like a whole bank account these days.
The beautiful organic vegetables and herbs that you see in this picture were free, or practically free as it were. I grew them in my garden and we lived relatively free as far as food is concerned minus the staples like organic dairy, grains, meats and vegetarian proteins over the spring and summer. I didn’t plant a winter garden this year due to just a lot of other life drama, but I plan to start up in the spring time again!
I’m what you call a front yard farmer. Because I have a home, I have an entire yard to do whatever I want in, (no HOA!), but most of my backyard is too shady for a big garden, so I grow food in the front yard instead of a lawn.
I hate lawns and the HOAs that enforce that nature killing bullshit.
Front yard farming is a controversial topic. But I will tell you from experience that these days, with food prices what they are, neighbors are not as petty about front yard vegetable gardens like they were 20 years ago, or even just 10 years ago.
Instead of complaining about how you are single-handedly responsible for lowering everyone else home value on the block, they now want to know how to do what you are doing, And that’s what happened to me when we moved into our house. I was the first person on the block to front yard farm and it was controversial for about 5 minutes before people started coming around and asking me about it. All of a sudden other neighbors started doing it too. Half of the homes on our block now grow vegetables in the front yard instead of maintaining a lawn. YAY for nature!! Yay for self sufficiency!
If you’ve ever grown a big garden like that you know it’s a lot of work, physical work and time commitment that can be challenging. One thing I have to admit that I miss about condo living is the tiny space I always had on a patio or balcony for all the vegetables and herbs I like to grow. Man…those were the easy days! Haha! I always dreamed of having this huge garden with all the things I could never grow on a condo patio and now that I have that space, I long for a condo patio garden again. Simple, painless (mostly) and easy to manage.
Well, next year I’m doing my big front yard garden again, but I’ve got this tiny sliver of direct sunlight in the back patio of my home that’s just about the size of my other patio gardens back in the day and this year I am going to do a spring-summer-fall patio garden back there. I’m growing all of the vegetables and herbs that are perfectly sized and manageable for a patio garden in that space.
If you’ve never done a patio or balcony farm, it’s all the fun of gardening minus all the work. Sure there is some work because you have to water things, fertilize things, manage pests, but in my opinion, it’s more joy for a lot less work, a whole lot less work!
Short on time and space and physical ability? Patio and balcony farming. Sure, you won’t have the same sort of harvest like a front yard farmer in terms of volume, but if you are looking for a way to save money and have some food self sufficiency, patio and balcony farming will do all of that for you and more.
What do you think those vegetables and herbs in that picture would cost you at the supermarket these days…that’s IF you could find them?
Supermarkets, even high-end organic markets carry what farmers are growing for profit, not necessarily the tastiest or the most nutritious vegetables, fruits and herbs. The vegetables and herbs in the picture? I’ve never seen them for sale in any supermarket. They are heirloom and rare varieties that aren’t going to be profitable for a farmer growing for a supermarket, and not so profitable for supermarkets either since many of the most delectable varieties of vegetables, fruit and herbs don’t have great shelf lives in produce bins.
I feel like food self sufficiency is going to be one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your family in the coming year, even if it’s just the little things, like growing a flat of lettuce, or growing basil instead of buying it, or growing strawberries on a strawberry tower instead of buying them.
If disabilities and / or a constrained budget have previously made you shy away from gardening I think this is going to be for you. Gardening should not be expensive and it should not be only for the physically able. More than a decade ago when I was going through radiation and immune suppression therapy, I could still do my patio garden! Because when it comes to disabilities and gardening it’s always okay to accommodate yourself you don’t need to ask permission!
Next in my patio and balcony gardening series we are going to talk about seed varieties for patios and balconies. January kicks off seed catalog season, my favorite time of the year next to spring! I love getting all of those seed catalogs in the mail and I know I have way too many seeds at this point.
Hey. if you haven’t checked out my Etsy store it’s where I sell all of my signed books and a few other sweet things. Stop by for a visit!