Chris McLaughlin’s Front-Yard Suburban Farm

Like many modern food gardeners, Chris McLaughlin is on a mission to get homeowners to rethink their front lawns. With her formal design for a front-yard suburban farm, she makes a strong case. Numerous decorative elements — checkerboard pavers, crushed granite pathways, and archway trellises — are pleasing to the eye, while vegetables from the well-filled garden beds tempt the palate.

Chris McLaughlin wants you to push the envelope in your urban and suburban front yards. “This design takes a classic micro-farm approach to the front yard and isn’t for the faint of heart,” she warns with a laugh. “It isn’t about tucking food plants discreetly here and there into the foundation landscaping. Instead, it’s rather boastful and proudly states, ‘I am all about food production and I am beautiful!’” Do be sure to check into your local ordinances first so that you don’t break the law when you break ground.

Making the space inviting. Besides producing homegrown food, a front-yard garden can also bring people together. In an effort to keep the garden neighbor-friendly and inviting, the garden paths are made of grass, and two grass-and-paver checkerboard walkways lead from the street to the yard and the yard to the house. Chris chose to include grass in the plan because, as the traditional front-yard ground cover, it may make food-skeptical neighbors a bit more comfortable.

The entire plot measures 26 by 26 feet and contains four 4- by 4-foot square beds, a central circle of chives around a wrought-iron obelisk, and a 3-foot-wide perimeter bed filled with fruits and sunflowers. The fruits include highbush blueberries, strawberries, espaliered pear trees, and columnar apple trees — beanpole trees with a single central trunk that produce full-size fruits all along their 8-foot length. (See here for more on espaliered fruit trees.) A crushed granite pathway forms a cross in the middle of the garden, adding formality and permitting easy access for a wheelbarrow.

A showy entrance. An archway trellis marks the entrance of the garden from the street and bisects a highbush blueberry hedge that runs the length of the south perimeter bed. These hardy shrubs will supply a long season of sweet, juicy berries as long as at least two varieties are planted to ensure cross-pollination. “If you haven’t planted blueberries before, they’re quite the show!” raves Chris. “The new leaves are a stand-out, warm red color, followed by darling pink flowers and finally, the delicious blueberries.” In autumn, the scarlet blaze of foliage color is dynamite.

Continuing east along the outside bed, short and sunny sunflowers add cheerful late summer color to the garden. “The shorter varieties are fun for small children and are great as food for wildlife or for fall crafts,” notes Chris. Next to the sunflowers is a row of columnar apple trees, which are perfect for fruit lovers with limited space. She also points out that you will need a few different varieties for cross-pollination. ‘Quinault’ strawberries form an edible ground cover at the feet of the apple trees.

At the back of the garden, facing the house, two Meyer lemon trees, which could be planted in containers and brought indoors in the winter, yield an annual crop of aromatic fruits. The nearby rosemary plants, a magnet for beneficial insects, could also be grown in pots and moved indoors each autumn. The sage is hardy to Zone 5 and can be left in the ground in all but the coldest regions.

In the west perimeter bed, espaliered pear trees — again, two varieties for cross-pollination — provide a staggered harvest that runs from late summer to mid-autumn. “ ‘Moonglow’ is a good pear for espalier,” says Chris. “The fruit has good flavor with very little ‘grit’ to it, it ripens in mid-August, and it’s highly resistant to fire blight.” Medium to tall sunflowers finish the plot. If you’re looking to impress (or astound!) your neighbors, consider monster-sized varieties like ‘Mammoth’, ‘Kong’, or ‘Sunzilla’.

Maximizing the trellises. The four square beds in the middle of the plot contain a variety of both heirloom and hybrid vegetables, many supported on homemade trellis systems. The northeast bed contains trellised mini-pumpkins and climbing nasturtiums as well as kale. In the northwest square, melons and purple pole beans climb a wire panel tent, and heirloom bush beans fill in the rest of the space. Chris recommends succession planting for the bush beans, sowing fresh seed every few weeks for an extended harvest. In each of the southern squares, two mini rows of staked and pruned tomatoes occupy half of the plot, with peppers or eggplants filling the remainder of the beds. Along the inner edges of each of the four beds, Chris has planted a low hedge of sweet alyssum, whose fragrance is enticing to pollinating insects.

Chris’s Garden Plan

Perimeter Beds

1. Lemon trees: ‘Meyer’

2. Rosemary

3. Sage

4. Columnar apple trees: ‘Northpole’, ‘Golden Sentinel’, and ‘Scarlet Sentinel’

5. Strawberries: ‘Quinault’ everbearing

6. Short sunflowers: ‘Teddy Bear’, ‘Baby Bear’, or ‘Orange Hobbit’

7. Blueberries: ‘Sunshine Blue’

8. Purple pole beans

9. Pear trees: ‘Moonglow’ and ‘Maxine’ (also called ‘Starking Delicious’), espaliered

10. Medium to tall sunflowers: ‘Moonshadow’, ‘Velvet Queen’, ‘Mammoth’, ‘Kong’, or ‘Sunzilla’

Center Beds

11. Melons: ‘Tigger’ heirloom melons, ‘Minnesota Midget’ heirloom muskmelons, ‘Golden Midget’ heirloom watermelons, and ‘Yellow Doll’ hybrid watermelons

12. Beans: ‘Nickel’ and ‘Dragon Tongue’ bush

13. Sweet alyssum

14. Kale: ‘Red Russian’

15. Nasturtiums and pumpkins: ‘New England Sugar Pie’ pumpkins (heirloom); ‘Jack-Be-Little’ (heirloom) and ‘Baby Boo’ (hybrid, white) mini pumpkins

16. Tomatoes: ‘Cherokee Purple’, ‘Brandywine’, ‘Pineapple’, and ‘Vorlon’ heirloom; ‘Sungold’ cherry; ‘San Marzano’ or ‘Roma’ heirloom paste

17. Eggplants: ‘Rosa Bianca’ (heirloom) and ‘Fairy Tale’ (hybrid)

18. Peppers: ‘Banana’ and ‘Purple Beauty’ sweet; ‘Thai Dragon’ hot

19. Chives

20. Purple pole beans