Eat your grass strip...

If you're fortunate enough to have a grass strip on the other side of the sidewalk in your neighborhood (assuming you have a sidewalk), consider it excess room for growing veggies.  We're not certain, but that's what this looks like is being done in front of this home in an older neighborhood here in town.  It's a very well crafted and sturdy raised bed with some chicken-wire over the top. 

The idea of turning boring sod over into productive use for food is nothing new.  "From The Back Kitchen" posted on rural sprawl a few weeks back.  It's a timely topic given the rapid in food prices we're experiencing.  A little extra food security, self-sufficiency, and reducing the cost of your monthly food bill are all good things.  We'll be watching this little experiment over the summer to see how it progresses.

• Eat your lawn - How to build your own edible estate [Gardenlab]
• Edible Estates [website]

Comments

[Kate]

Nice use of a small and neglected space, that's for sure. Even if it just turns out to be flowers.

And yeah, urban agriculture FTW. People should take advantage of Spokane's great growing season (which I am insanely jealous of nowadays) more than they do. Tomatoes... bell peppers... eggplant... You people are so lucky!

[David Blaine]

Another great website is http://www.kitchengardeners.org/
I like the fact that they have started a campaign to pressure the next president to turn the White House lawn into an edible landscape.

[Jim]

The Victory Garden is back just in time for our recent recession. Gardens really can produce a lot of food and yes we have a good growing season once we get this danger of frost our of our systems. When I was growing up in the Logan District, we had a 40 x20 foot long space that produced a bounty of vegetables for two months. There's nothing like the taste of still warm tomatoes from the garden and corn picked, husked and thrown into boiling water for 5 minutes. Great memories! Yes those little parking strips that dry out in summer make great planting spaces - just cut out the turf, till, add some compost and plant. Keep up the postings of creative gardeners.