Edible Landscape: Primary Residence

Last week,  I wrote about our yard and how we are trying to make it so that we can generate most of our produce from our property.  In this post, I will show you pictures of our primary residence and the steps we have taken over the last 4 years and the steps we plan on taking in upcoming years to make this land as productive as possible.

Front of the house.

This is a picture of our primary residence which is half an acre. As you can see, it is not very colorful this time of year.  I love when the leaves start to form on the trees and everything bursts with colors of spring.   We have a nice sized front yard, but the majority of our property is to the side of our home and very dense with trees. 

Picture from the edge of our property to our home.

Picture of our side property - we own to the bush in the side yard.
These are our new red raspberry patches. 

In the side yard,  a little closer to the road, there are two pear trees. We purchased these trees along with a dwarf plum at a large discount in June 2010.

Pear Trees

This is a picture of our teeny tiny back yard. We have never really done much back here, but I’ve got big plans for this area. I received 6 blueberry startings a few weeks back that are now planted in this area. I also plan on putting in blackberry bushes and strawberries in the area.   My new moto is: If it’s got sun, decent soil and room to grow, use it!

Teeny Tiny Backyard

6 Blueberries Planted!

A new addition has arrived last week that I absolutely love: our new arbor!  On this arbor, we will be planting 4 concord grape vines (on their way in the mail as I type this).  I have wanted to grow concord grapes since we moved in, but this year it is actually happening!  Concord grapes bring up great memories of my childhood when my mom, dad and I would eat bags full of concord grapes, never getting enough of them.  They aren’t as readily available here in Ohio as they were in New York and Pennsylvania, but that will (hopefully) all be changing in the next 2-3 years when we have our very own source of them in the front yard! 

Arbor

Close to our mailbox in the front yard, we planted a dwarf plum tree that we bought on clearance from Home Depot two years ago at 75% off.  We have been patiently waiting for fruit to start producing on this tree.  One reason we have this tree here in the front yard is because it is decorative, but the added bonus is that it will hopefully start producing fruit for us!

Dwarf Plum

Where are all of our vegetables going to be planted?

Next week, I will show you the other ½ acre lot we own next door.

Please feel free to link up to this post with pictures of your yard or container garden.  I’d love to see it!





This post is linked up to Homestead Revival's Barn Hop!

Edible Landscape

About a mile away from our home, there is a woman who lives on a city-like lot of less than ¼ acre.  She has very little yard, and what she does have is in the front of her house.  Last year, while I drove by her house to go into town, I noticed she had dug up rows in her front yard.  I was curious as to what she was doing.  By May, I figured it out: she planted an edible front yard of tomatoes exclusively!  Though it wasn’t the prettiest yard to look at on the street, I saw bright red tomatoes in her front yard every week when I drove past her home and I had to smile to think about what she was doing with all that produce!

As I walk around our yard, I get the feeling that we could potentially eat quite well (minus meat, dairy and grain) off our property.  We live on 1 acre of land divided up in two parcels.  I found this great diagram  from Ohio State University’s website that shows how to have an edible landscape in our zone (zone 6) even on the smallest of properties.

Over the next two weeks, I will walk you around our two parcels of property and show you how we are making it the most efficient we can in terms of growing our own fruits and vegetables. 

A picture of our property.  We own to the street at the very end of this road.

To those who would like to join me, please start getting ready to link up next week.  I would love to see how you “live off your land.”