The Edible Front Yard

Starred review from March 7, 2011
The locavore movement has energized many to grow their own food, something that can seem at odds with the desire for a beautiful yard. Enter Soler, whose informative tips for growing fruits and vegetables that will not only taste great, but look great (overflowing with Summa's lush photography) makes for a timely, handsome guide. Soler (known for her popular blog, the Germinatrix) excels at describing garden projects; how to construct a sturdy but attractive trellis, espalier a fruit tree, build a unique corrugated raised bed, and dozens of other tasks are vividly explained. She profiles plants from amaranth to yucca, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, edible flowers and cactus. However, while basic cultivation and culinary information is provided for each plant, serious gardeners will need additional references to find specifics like varietal differences, and sunlight, water, and soil amendment requirements. Soler addresses structure, borders, repetition, texture, form, color, and hardscape in designing your front yard garden, providing detailed plans for three in existence. Finally, she tackles some of the less-fun realities involved, like lawn removal, building codes, and dry, packed streetside beds. She provides a brief introduction to organic methods, irrigation, and garden maintenance, as well as a list of seed resources. A well-designed and thorough overview, The Edible Front Yard is an enticing introduction to growing food beautifully. Readers, start your shovels. Photos.

February 1, 2011
A picture is worth a thousand words, and Solers guide to combining vegetables, flowers, herbs, and fruit trees for front yard curb appeal proves it. This germinatrix demonstrates with numerous full-color, page-filling photos the literal and figurative beauty in transforming a wasteful time-consuming, toxic monoculture . . . an anti-social space into a more evolved and exciting version of front yard beauty that prizes health, diversity, and pleasure over short-term convenience. Solers suggestions for well-designed lawn alternatives emphasize color, form, and varietal texture found in such commonplace and utilitarian flora as apple trees, fragrant basil with its African Blue blooms, and the burnished stems, elongated leaves, and purple lacquered fruit of eggplants. An alphabetical listing of ornamental edibles from apples to wormwood (a genus of insect-repelling plants with silvery foliage as intoxicatingvisually, that isas its putatively hallucinogenic distillate, absinthe) combined with landscaping tips for various building styles and a resources list round out a useful and inspiring volume.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)