“The Edible Estates project proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn with a highly productive edible landscape. It was initiated by architect and artist Fritz Haeg on Independence Day, 2005, with the planting of the first regional prototype garden in the geographic center of the United States, Salina, Kansas. Since then three more prototype gardens have been created.

“Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn documents the first four gardens with first-hand accounts written by the owners, garden plans, and photographs illustrating the creation of the gardens, from ripping up the grass to harvesting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and herbs.”

“Essays by landscape architect Diana Balmori, garden and food writer Rosalind Creasy, Fritz Haeg, author Michael Pollan, and artist and writer Lesley Stern set the Edible Estates project in the context of larger issues concerning the environment, global food production, and generating a sense of community in our urban and suburban neighborhoods. The book also includes reports and photographs from the owners of other edible front yards around the country, and helpful resources to guide you in making your own Edible Estate.”

Purchase Edible Estates here. Published February, 2008.

Article and Video. Baltimore Sun April 14, 2008
Turning lawns into salad bars: Fritz Haeg campaigns to turn front lawns into incredible, edible yards.

Visit Edible Estates’ website here.

The urban farmer: One man’s crusade to plough up the inner city
By Kate Burt 1 June 2008 in ‘The Independent’

“This book presents the results of a 3-year research project on the history and state of urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba. A multidisciplinary team of 15 professionals, coordinated by the authors, assess the long-term potential for including urban agriculture in the social economies of two areas of Havana, as well as in city-wide environmental management programs.”

“The results will be of particular interest to municipal, local, and community authorities considering how to convert emergency food-production measures into long-term support for urban agriculture, both for food self-reliance and for environmental enhancement (including park rehabilitation). The book will also be of interest to producers, students, decision-makers, and academics interested in sustainable management of the urban environment.”

By Maria Caridad Cruz and Roberto Sánchez Medina
Ian Randle Publishers/IDRC 2003, 244 pages.

The complete book can be read on-line here.

“The garden offers a great many solutions, practical as well as philosophical, to the whole problem of eating well. My own vegetable garden is modest in scale – a densely planted patch in the front yard only about twenty feet by ten – but it yields an astonishing cornucopia of produce, so much so that during the summer months we discontinue our CSA box and buy little but fruit from the farmers’ market. And though we live on a postage-stamp city lot, there’s room enough for a couple of fruit trees too: a lemon, a fig and a persimmon. To the problem of being able to afford high-quality organic produce the garden offers the most straightforward solution: The food you grow yourself is fresher than any you can buy, and it costs nothing but an hour or two of work each week plus the price of a few packets of seed.”

Link to Michael Pollan’s website and book.