Lawns into Vegetable Gardens

Food & Wine magazine this month awards an "Eco-Epicurean" award to architect Fritz Haeg, who has been bringing an artist's eye to transforming front yards into vegetable gardens.

In 2005, the Salina Art Center in Salina, Kansas, asked Lang to contribute to its show on food and society. Lang's response was to turn the front yard of a local family's home into a vegetable garden, complete with corn, okra and herbs. He called it, "Edible Estate."

Since then, Lang has established three more edible estates in Los Angeles, New York and London. The garden in London was commissioned by the Tate Modern.

Haeg places his gardens not among hippies or tree huggers, but in neighborhoods where they are guaranteed to provoke a strong reaction (as where people are obsessed with property values, perhaps?)

The Edible Estates manifesto at Haeg's website states: "Edible Estates is an attack on the American front lawn and everything it has come to represent.
Edible Estates reconciles issues of global food production and urbanized land use with the modest gesture of a domestic garden."

"I want kids to see these gardens and start to ask questions about where their food comes from," Haeg says.

A book about Edible Estates is scheduled for publication next year.

The Slow Cook is starting to feel even more proud of his own front-yard vegetable garden. Could it be that we are simply ahead of the curve?