A labor of love
Family turned front lawn into edible wonder

by Carol Blitzer / photos by Veronica Weber

Few 6-year-olds plan playdates digging in their front yard.

But twins Gabriel and Isaac Heintze are literally enjoying the fruits of their labor, just a few months after their parents, Amy Gerstein and Richard Heintze, turned their front lawn into an edible paradise -- while saving water.

"We are a family who is aware of a variety of ways we impact the Earth," Gerstein says. When they noticed how much the boys loved gardening with their pre-school teacher, Debbie Togliatti, they roped her into changing their landscape.

As her son Isaac buzzes through the garden, deadheading flowers, Gerstein, a former science teacher, says she wants her sons "to be stewards for the Earth. It's not something you can teach without doing it."

Togliatti, who runs a landscape consulting business mainly in summer, explained how they could turn their guilt-instilling, water-guzzling front lawn into an edible landscape. They started by thinking about replacing the lawn with large planter boxes, but soon decided to turn the sod over, rototill and create raised beds, what the boys call "islands."

In December, they hired someone to till the turf, covered the mounds with newspaper and spread garden soil on top. Then came "mulch with Mom."

Bare-root trees were planted facing the street in January.

Then they waited for nature to take its course.

"It looked terrible for months," Gerstein says. But by April, artichokes were already ripening; they continued through August, when the thistle's last large purple blooms opened.

Before planting the majority of vegetables in April and May, they converted their sprinklers to drip irrigation. Soon each mound was planted with something special: eggplant, zucchini and pumpkins on one mound, herbs (basil, rosemary, dill, Italian parsley, sage, tarragon, fennel, mint) on another.

In the brick planter they clustered strawberries and blueberries, which require a more acid soil.

Another row draws the eye from red potatoes and red peppers down to the yellow jalapenos and Yukon golds.

Without the vast expanse of lawn, the family sees no need for their mow-and-blow gardener. Instead they manage their huge vegetable garden themselves, with a little help from Togliatti and other friends. All is done without pesticides.

Even the fruit trees, which usually take at least a year to establish, are beginning to bear fruit.

So far, response from their neighbors in The Willows, Menlo Park, has been mixed, but Gerstein says consciousness is rising slowly. Today when she drives around town, her boys point out "lawn, lawn, lawn," tsk-tsking about the water waste.

At the end of the summer harvest, most of the perennials -- mainly salvias and penstemons -- will be cut back, and the vegetable remnants pulled out. They'll be added to the compost bin in the back, and eventually recycled into soil amendments in the front.

In fall and winter, they plan to put in broccoli, Swiss chard, lettuce, edamame, spinach, kale and cauliflower.
While they'll miss the color of the summer blossoms, veggies and fruits, they'll still have a variety of textures and a huge span of greens, Gerstein and Togliatti say. And the Swiss chard comes in yellow and orange, and even the peas will flower. "It's not as dramatic as a summer garden," Gerstein says.

They're already thinking about what they can plant next spring: The kids are advocating for apricots and corn.

"I don't know how many 6-year-olds fight over artichokes," Gerstein says, laughing. And so far she hasn't cooked any of the green beans -- they're eaten before they hit the house.

Resources:
Landscape consultant: Debbie Togliatti, Weed It and Reap, Mountain View, 650-743-9927

Goal of project: Replace front lawn with edible landscape, reduce water usage

Surprises: Found plenty of worms in the rich soil

Year house built: 1948

Size of garden, lot:
2009

Size of house, lot: 30 ft x 30 ft front yard (8,800-sq-ft lot)

Time to complete: About four months between rototilling and first crop

Budget: About $2,000