Edible Estates : Attack on the Front Lawn

Since the first edition of Edibile Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn was published, in 2008, interest in edible gardening has exploded across the United States and abroad Even First Lady Michelle Obama is doing it!

The greatly expanded second edition of this book documents the eight Edible Estates regional prototype gardens that author Fritz Haeg has planted in California, Kansas, Texas, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and England, and includes personal accounts from the homeowner-gardeners about the pleasures and challenges of publicly growing food where they live. Ten "Reports from Coast to Coast" tell the stories of others who have planted their own edible front yards in towns and cities across the country. In addition to essays by renowned landscape architect and scholar Diana Balmori, edible-landscaping pioneer Rosalind Creasy, best-selling author and sustainable-food advocate Michael Pollan, and artist and writer Lesly Stern, this edition features updated text by Haeg [including his observations on the Obama White House vegetable garden]; a contribution from Mannahatta author Eric W. Sanderson; and Growing Power founder, MacArthur Fellow, and urban farmer will Allen's never-before-published Declaration of the Good Food Revolution.

This is not a comprehensive how-to book or a showcase of impossibly perfect gardens. The example and stories presented here are intended to inspire you to plant your own version of an Edible Estate and to reveal something about how we are living today. When we see that the typical grassy front lawn can be a beautiful food garden instead, perhaps we will look at the city around us with new eyes. Our private land can be a public model for the world in which we would like to live.

"Edible Estates describes wonderfully how a garden in front of every house can transform a neighborhood, sprouting the seeds not just of zucchini and tomatoes but of biodiversity, sustainability, and community."---Alice Waters, owner, Chez Panisse Restaurant

"The best ideas are usually the simplest ones: Fritz Haeg deserves a genius award for his wonderfully subversive plan. Instead of mowing your lawn, you should eat it."---Eric Schlosser, author, Fast Food Nation

"In the future, that quarter-acre next to the house may be as valuable as the house itself this book reminds us that there are things better than lawns---more beautiful, more hopeful, more fun"---Bill McKibben, author, The Bill McKibben Reader

"Much like a home grown tomato, Edible Estates is at once delectable, inspiring and healthy. Read it: you'll never look at your front lawn the same way again.---Elizabeth Kolbert, author, Field Notes from a Catastrophe

Fritz Haog works between his occasional architecture and design practice. Fritz Haeg Studio: the happenings and gatherings of Sundown Salosn, the ecology initiatives of Gardenlab, which include Edible Estates; and his role as an educator. His ongoing Anima Estates initiative proposes the strategic reintroduction of native animals into our cities with a series of regional events publications, exhibitions and design oroposals. It debuted at the 2008 Whitney Biennal, and later editions werev produced in six cities across the U.S. and Europe. In 2006 Haeg initiated Sundown Schoolhouse an laternative educational environment based in his geodesic dome in Los Angeles. He has taught in architecture, design and fine art programs at CalArts, Art Center College of Design, Parsons, and the University of Southern California. He has produced projects and exhibited work at the late Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Mass MoCA, the Institute of contemporary Art, Philadelphia, the CCA Watus Institute for Contemporary Arts; the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Maastrich, SFMOMA, and the MAK Center, Los Angeles, among other organizations, www.Fritzhaeg.com

Since the first edition of Edibile Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn was published, in 2008, interest in edible gardening has exploded across the United States and abroad Even First Lady Michelle Obama is doing it!

The greatly expanded second edition of this book documents the eight Edible Estates regional prototype gardens that author Fritz Haeg has planted in California, Kansas, Texas, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and England, and includes personal accounts from the homeowner-gardeners about the pleasures and challenges of publicly growing food where they live. Ten "Reports from Coast to Coast" tell the stories of others who have planted their own edible front yards in towns and cities across the country. In addition to essays by renowned landscape architect and scholar Diana Balmori, edible-landscaping pioneer Rosalind Creasy, best-selling author and sustainable-food advocate Michael Pollan, and artist and writer Lesly Stern, this edition features updated text by Haeg [including his observations on the Obama White House vegetable garden]; a contribution from Mannahatta author Eric W. Sanderson; and Growing Power founder, MacArthur Fellow, and urban farmer will Allen's never-before-published Declaration of the Good Food Revolution.

This is not a comprehensive how-to book or a showcase of impossibly perfect gardens. The example and stories presented here are intended to inspire you to plant your own version of an Edible Estate and to reveal something about how we are living today. When we see that the typical grassy front lawn can be a beautiful food garden instead, perhaps we will look at the city around us with new eyes. Our private land can be a public model for the world in which we would like to live.

"Edible Estates describes wonderfully how a garden in front of every house can transform a neighborhood, sprouting the seeds not just of zucchini and tomatoes but of biodiversity, sustainability, and community."---Alice Waters, owner, Chez Panisse Restaurant

"The best ideas are usually the simplest ones: Fritz Haeg deserves a genius award for his wonderfully subversive plan. Instead of mowing your lawn, you should eat it."---Eric Schlosser, author, Fast Food Nation

"In the future, that quarter-acre next to the house may be as valuable as the house itself this book reminds us that there are things better than lawns---more beautiful, more hopeful, more fun"---Bill McKibben, author, The Bill McKibben Reader

"Much like a home grown tomato, Edible Estates is at once delectable, inspiring and healthy. Read it: you'll never look at your front lawn the same way again.---Elizabeth Kolbert, author, Field Notes from a Catastrophe

Fritz Haog works between his occasional architecture and design practice. Fritz Haeg Studio: the happenings and gatherings of Sundown Salosn, the ecology initiatives of Gardenlab, which include Edible Estates; and his role as an educator. His ongoing Anima Estates initiative proposes the strategic reintroduction of native animals into our cities with a series of regional events publications, exhibitions and design oroposals. It debuted at the 2008 Whitney Biennal, and later editions werev produced in six cities across the U.S. and Europe. In 2006 Haeg initiated Sundown Schoolhouse an laternative educational environment based in his geodesic dome in Los Angeles. He has taught in architecture, design and fine art programs at CalArts, Art Center College of Design, Parsons, and the University of Southern California. He has produced projects and exhibited work at the late Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Mass MoCA, the Institute of contemporary Art, Philadelphia, the CCA Watus Institute for Contemporary Arts; the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Maastrich, SFMOMA, and the MAK Center, Los Angeles, among other organizations, www.Fritzhaeg.com