…and welcome! I’m Amy, and I started Front Yard Veggies when we moved from a 450 square foot apartment in Brooklyn, NY to a 500 sq foot bungalow in Santa Monica, CA — but with an extra 400 square feet of outdoor space. And by outdoor space, I mean a beige slab of concrete that was really the end of the driveway, but was our “front yard.” Glamorous rent-controlled living! I had been on waitlists to join Brooklyn community gardens because I had a deep urge to get my hands dirty and start gardening, so when we finally had some outdoor space one of the first things we did was build one solitary 3’x6′ raised garden bed.
I way, way, way over-planted it, but I was hooked! That first raised bed produced kale for months on end, but I got overwhelmed after the plants all bolted and didn’t plant anything in it for six months. After going back to the drawing board, I decided to experiment with square foot gardening and a bit more growing space, which looked like so:
Those beds worked well, until they didn’t. Turns out, 6″ isn’t quite enough space for the roots of certain plants (cough, cough, tomatoes). With typical square foot gardening, when you build the beds on existing soil, it’s fine. But since we were working with zero soil on the ground (see how we built raised beds on concrete here) we had to reevaluate. So it was time for garden iteration #3:
They were wonderful! I was hooked and wanted more, more, MORE SPACE! So my wonderful husband (and resident handyman/carpenter extraordinaire) made my urban garden dreams come true:
Eight raised beds and 7′ privacy trellis combined to turn what was once a barren, depressing slab of concrete into a thriving urban oasis. Then I gave birth to our daughter in May 2020, aka the height of the pandemic, and realizing we were on the opposite side of the country from all of our family and most of our friends, decided to make our way back to the East Coast. We found our dream home, which we purchased sight unseen, drove across the country (you can watch the Instagram story highlights of that here and here because honestly, it was like something out of a sitcom), and went from urban gardening on concrete to having 1.5 acres of lush, established gardens in Central Massachusetts. We moved in the fall of 2020 and are slowly learning the lay of the land, but I’m downright giddy having so much space to spread my metaphorical gardening wings!
If you made it to the end then thank you for being here! When I first started gardening I was so, so overwhelmed with all of the information I found online and in books. I had a bit of paralysis by analysis — I was scared of messing up, but the only way to learn is to make mistakes. And trust me, there will be plenty of them in gardening, cooking, baking, whatever you try. On Front Yard Veggies, I’ll share what has worked for us in the garden, things we’re trying around the property, new projects we’re embarking on around the home, lots of delicious (mostly plant-based) recipes, and more. If you ever have a question or want to chat you can hit me up on Instagram or shoot me an email: amy@frontyardveggies.com.
