Front Yard Gardens: Transforming Lawn into Vegetable Gardens

Turning your yard into an edible garden is a great way to utilize the space, elevate your home's aesthetics, and create an inviting entrance to your home. A well-designed garden can also boost your property's value. If you want to add more purpose to the front of your plot, growing crops is the best way to do it.

With the increasing awareness of climate change and its significant effects on food shortages, more people are replacing their lawns with edible gardens. Now, one in three Americans prefers growing food in a home or community garden. Plenty of methods exist to add edibles into your front yard, even if you've only a small plot. Many vegetables, fruits, and flowers grow perfectly in pots or hanging baskets.

Want to know how to DIY this garden transformation? Read on to learn how to turn your grassy lawn into a colorful vegetable garden.

Benefits of Turning Your Lawn into Edible Garden

Vegetable gardens promote an environmentally friendly lifestyle. If you are tired of feeding your grass, mowing your lawn, maintaining it continuously, and paying the high-water bills that come with having a lush green lawn, it is best to switch to an edible garden for surprising benefits.

Here are the benefits of transforming your lawn into a productive vegetable garden.

• Grow and harvest healthy food
• Allows you to spend more time outdoors in nature
• Involving in nature helps relieve stress and makes you relaxed
• Increases your and your family's health by providing nutritious fresh veggies and fruit
• Reduces carbon footprint and saves the environment by reducing travel to get food from stores
• Gives your home entrance a vibrant, welcoming look

How to Transform a Front Yard into a Vegetable Garden

Here's a step-by-step process for transforming your front yard into a gorgeous vegetable garden. This will enable you to enjoy the fresh produce of your garden and bring it to your table.

1. Pick a Garden Location and Mark Out the Area

The first step is to select the garden size, choose the right location, and mark out the area. If you are new to gardening, start small. You can always expand your garden in the future. When picking a location, choose an area that receives enough sunlight. Most crops need 6-8 hours of sunlight daily to thrive. Consider growing shade-tolerant crops if your yard receives less than six hours of sunlight daily.

2. Build a Fence

A fence provides privacy when you spend time in your garden and looks appealing from the outside. Additionally, it protects your garden from wild animals. Some common fencing types include vertical wooden board fencing, trellis fencing, and picket fencing. A beautiful fence can completely enhance the look of your garden. You can also stain the fence to give it a more attractive color and texture.

3. Remove Grass and Vegetation

The most crucial step in turning your lawn into a garden is removing the sod. If planting directly in the ground, you must remove all the grass first. It can compete with your plants for nutrients and moisture. Also, removing the sod allows you to properly amend your soil, improve its fertility, and prepare it for plantation.

Take some time to completely remove grass and weeds from the area where you want to plant your vegetable garden. Not every gardening project requires you to get rid of grass. For example, you can build raised garden beds and plant without removing your lawn. However, it'd be difficult to mow between raised beds. Therefore, we recommend removing all your turfgrass before starting a garden. You can rent a sod cutter to remove the grass.

Read More: How To Maintain a Simple Vegetable Garden?

4. Test and Amend Your Soil

Healthy, rich soil is crucial for growing strong, healthy plants. Test your garden soil to ensure it contains nutrients your plants might require for successful growth. The soil type varies depending on your location. Most fruits, vegetables, and flowers grow well in crumby soil that has a neutral pH and is full of organic matter and microorganisms.

If your garden soil is heavy in clay, it is best to grow vegetables in raised beds. Soil amendments can improve your soil health and nutrient levels. Add organic and inorganic soil amendments to boost your soil. Some organic soil amendments include compost, aged animal manure, peat moss, wood ashes, and wood chips. Inorganic soil amendments to mix in your soil include pea gravel, lime, gypsum, and sulfur.

5. Build Your Garden Beds

Once you have removed the grass and amended your soil, the next step is to build garden beds. You can plant your vegetable garden in the ground, in raised beds, or containers. Raised beds make gardening more accessible by reducing the need for bending and kneeling to plant, prune, weed, and harvest. Additionally, they improve soil drainage and give you greater control over soil quality. You can fill your raised garden beds with quality soil and compost to provide the ideal nutrients for your plants.

Raised beds can be built with wood, stones, bricks, metal, or other materials. Wood and metal raised beds are most popular as they also increase the aesthetics of your garden. On the other hand, use the vegetable garden design and build planting rows in your in-ground beds. Rows can be 10-12 inches high and 16 inches wide. Add mulch around the beds to hold moisture and prevent weed growth.

Read More: How to Grow Vegetables in Raised Beds

6. Plant Vegetables

Here comes the most exciting part of transforming your lawn into a vegetable garden. Choose the vegetables, fruits, and flowers you want to plant in your garden. Some shared garden crops are zucchini, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, potatoes, radishes, carrots, onion, peppers, and strawberries. When buying plants, find out if they will last for years to come or only one season. Check to see whether they're annual or perennial. Most importantly, find out your area's hardiness zone and then choose plants that grow well in your zone. Choose varieties that thrive in your climate and provide a steady harvest all season.

In addition to vegetables and fruits, add some blooming plants to your garden to attract pollinators and bring a lovely color, fragrance, and taste. You can plant gorgeous flowers like zinnias, marigolds, daisies, nasturtiums, and pansies to provide a pop of color. Also, sunflowers are an excellent choice for a vegetable garden.

7. Plant Fragrant Herbs Near Entrance in Pots

Plant aromatic herbs in pots or containers, as they're the perfect way to make your home's entrance appealing. Growing herbs in pots can give you amazing edible treats even if you have a small front yard. They are easy and quick to grow if they receive enough sunlight. Oregano, basil, mint, thyme, and rosemary are great choices. Place the pots near the front door to make it easier to reach. Also, their lovely scent will provide a great welcome home.

8. Try Vertical Gardening

If you have a small yard, try vertical gardening to utilize space more efficiently. Vertical gardening is a great way to plant more crops in compact spaces. You can create a living wall with leafy green vegetables, use a trellis with a planter box for squash and peas, or add an obelisk to your raised bed for climbing beans.

9. Install Efficient Irrigation System

Proper watering is key to a healthy vegetable garden. Your plants need regular watering, so plan an irrigation system to water them effectively. Install a drip irrigation system to water your plants in raised beds, in-ground beds, and containers efficiently and precisely. This system delivers water directly to the root zone of plants and reduces water wastage, which occurs due to evaporation and runoff. Drip irrigation ensures each plant receives the right amount of water without overwatering.

Consider buying drip irrigation kits, which include a dripline, mainline tubing, filter, hold-down stakes, and all the components needed to install a well-designed irrigation system.

Read More: 8 Amazing Benefits of Drip Irrigation in Vegetable Gardening

10. Harvest

Harvesting is the most satisfying and rewarding part of garden transformation. Once you have planted your favorite crops and cared for them to grow successfully, it's time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Monitor the crop ripening process and pick your vegetables and fruits when they're ready to harvest.

There is nothing like the taste of freshly picked tomatoes or cucumbers from your garden. Harvesting at the right time will allow you to enjoy the best taste and nutritional value of produce. When harvesting, assess how well your plants have grown, which varieties grow well and which ones struggled, and adjust your gardening practices for the coming season.

The Bottom Line

With a front yard, you can create a beautiful display of nature's beauty at your doorstep. Give your landscape a personal touch by decorating it and creating outdoor living spaces. First-year growing can be challenging, but with some effort and experience, you will be rewarded with a bountiful home-grown harvest throughout the seasons. So, follow this guide, transform your lawn into a productive area, and create a green haven to spend time in nature. Enjoy fresh home-grown food from your garden with our easy steps to transform your front yard into a flourishing garden.