I started foodscaping almost by accident, in 2005, when I bought my first home. I wanted to be able to access local organic produce, but I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t have the skills or tools to build raised beds, either. Instead, I started tucking my favorite food crops into the landscape beds that I had inherited. Inspired by Rosalind Creasy and her Edible Landscaping books, I set out to create a suburban yard that was both bountiful and beautiful despite my tight budget and concerns about my homeowners association’s (HOA) covenants. Much to my surprise, a year into developing my first foodscape my garden was given the highest honor a suburban development can bestow upon a residence: Yard of the year! Though generally reserved for the artificially-managed green lawns and clipped-hedged sort of landscapes, my organic garden broke the mold. It was an empowering moment when I realized we can develop a balance between ornamentals and edibles and meet the landscape guidelines set by HOAs.
Eventually, my quarter-acre lot was bursting at the seams with a beautiful mix of turf, trees, flowering shrubs, perennials, and organic food such as soybeans, corn, squash and tomatoes. I started to dream about the massive potential the suburban landscape offers. Imagine if every house had a small foodscape that was professionally managed through the HOA fees? All residents would have access to fresh produce that would be just steps away from their home. When done right, foodscaping could allow people to have a lot more money to allocate to things other than food. Foodscaping is simply a way to strike a happy medium between the needs of homeowners (food) and the desires of the HOA (a tidy landscape).
Make a bold statement by planting corn and zinnias together for increased pollinator activity.
I soon began thinking bigger: I saw that by utilizing the growing potential and open land of housing developments, businesses and school campuses, foodscaping could extend beyond the individual home and offer a solution for sustainable land management on a larger scale. Though urban farming is a sexy topic and a worthy one, the truth is that there are roughly 180 million acres devoted to suburban sprawl in the U.S. – that’s more acreage than all of our national and state parks combined! I could visualize the untapped potential of what could be grown on under-utilized developed land like the suburban landscape. For example, many neighborhoods require that turf cover 80% of open land, with only 20% devoted to landscape. These percentages could be tweaked to better utilize the cultivated land for food development and ecosystem restoration. A win-win.
The ultimate aim of foodscape design is to make the most of the cultivated land while utilizing the existing shrub and turf base.
Over the past decade I have dedicated a lot of time to figuring out the dynamic between the woody ornamental plants that make up the average landscape, the turf space that manages excess water, and the vast square footage of open mulch space that immature landscapes offer. I gave myself a goal: to demonstrate in my own life how much food could be produced by integrating practical edibles into the common spaces of my own neighborhood. If it could work for me, then how could this design model potentially impact the accessibility of nutrition in every community? And for the landscape industry, which would naturally become involved, I asked: how does offering the service of growing food empower professionals for the future?
When I graduated from college, I went to work for a landscape company and managed their maintenance department. We spent a lot of time and resources on impractical land management strategies, like blowing the leaves away, only to replace them with mulch, which is, essentially, crumbled-up trees. We were taking away all of this great organic matter and spraying a ton of Roundup®. It was very frustrating for me. I kept thinking, we come to these landscapes every week. We know how to take care of them, and the homeowners could be getting so much more value from their space because we have the knowledge to grow plants that would feed them and their community.
Suburban landscapes have the potential to grow massive amounts of food. From serving the needs of the homeowners, to distributing to shelters, local restaurants and even school cafeterias – fresh, organic produce has a place in very community.
A summer foodscape of corn, okra, peppers, basil, marigolds, coleus, salvia and pennisetum.
The summer foodscape offers bounty and beauty.
The Bottom Line
Today, looking back on the foodscaping goal I set for myself ten years ago, I can see its effects in my own life, and they are substantial: the homegrown, organic lifestyle of my family has led me to cultivate a wide variety of edibles, including grains such as wheat and oats, and sugar sources such as cane sorghum. The foodscape provides so much abundance that we are able to grow 100% of certain foods, eliminating the need to ever purchase them. Garlic, onions, salad greens, peppers, peanuts and tomatoes are just a few examples. That makes a huge impact on my bank account and my peace of mind, knowing that I am eating food that was grown with an ethical standard.
Money isn’t the only thing that’s positively impacted by foodscaping; it also reduces food miles (the measurement of the fuel it takes to transport food from a distant farm to the consumer) and makes the landscape a more biodiverse habitat for insects, birds, butterflies, turtles, frogs and mammals. Right now, we as a culture place a large emphasis on gardening for wildlife and designing spaces for stormwater management, but we must also acknowledge that our landscapes should serve the needs of local communities. We can make that happen by growing nutritious edibles amongst our favorite ornamental specimens.
Looking Ahead
I am not under the illusion that suddenly homeowners everywhere will take the initiative to learn how to grow food. It is my goal, though, to make the foodscape model so mainstream that every landscape contractor offers it as a service. There are horticulture professionals who can cultivate food and flowers for you while managing your property in a sound and sustainable way. Most HOA landscapes are already professionally managed, so if the landscaper can also work with edibles, there’s no additional cost to the homeowner. When landscapers adopt foodscaping, their businesses become more relevant because they’re providing a vital service. However, change starts with individuals. Change will start with you – whether you’re a homeowner or a landscaper.
It starts by getting people to associate landscapes with food production. I think of rice as a great “gateway plant.” It looks just like the ornamental grasses we are used to growing – like fountain grass – and has much better structural integrity. While it’s unlikely that you’ll harvest enough rice in a foundation landscape to never need to purchase it, the meals you prepare from your homegrown plants will be special. This experience of eating what you’ve grown expands your awareness and appreciation of food. Even as a novelty, edibles deserve a place in the landscape to make people pay attention. There are okra plants that are as beautiful as hibiscus. People are already accustomed to seeing ornamental kale, cabbage and Swiss chard in the landscape. It’s time to crank things up a notch.
There’s a lot going on in this biodiverse, sustainable foodscape: Turf provides a permeable surface for water management. Flowers attract pollinators, while shrubs provide an architectural framework for the edibles.
Leading a Change
Once you make the switch in your mind to thinking about growing food in existing landscapes, every bit of open, sunny mulch space – school campuses, parks, office buildings, senior centers and new housing developments – will look like an opportunity just waiting to be cultivated.
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