A growing community

Tracy and Steve Smith are reaping the benefits of yanking out juniper bushes in their front yard and replacing them with robust cantaloupe plants.
And they’ve gradually transformed their back yard from lawn and flowers into a veritable salad bar with an assortment of fruit and vegetables ready for picking.

The change occurred shortly after their west Petaluma neighbors, Paul and Suzanne Mackey, moved in.

The Mackeys were more interested in yard potential than house features while shopping to buy a new home, and the couple has created a four-seasons “food forest” within a modest back yard.

To them, growing food is a community endeavor, and they’ve teamed up with the Smiths and other neighbors to grow nearly all of the produce they consume.

“We intentionally didn’t plant certain fruit trees because our neighbors have them. We informally have a produce alliance,” said Suzanne Mackey. “Corn grows better in our neighbor’s yard so we decided not to grow it.”

Some of the most successful plants are “volunteers,” like the wild plum tree planted by a bird that spontaneously sprouted and flourished.

Much of what the Mackeys grow takes care of itself with minimal maintenance. They consider their garden’s weeds an “underutilized resource,” since their chickens thrive on them.

The Mackeys have mastered the art of watering just enough by having water slowly seep into the ground and are aided by a 2,700-gallon rainwater storage tank in their backyard.

The Smiths and Mackeys represent a local movement of first-time and experienced gardeners who are growing fruit and vegetables as an alternative to high-maintenance flowers, shrubs and lawns.

“We’re thrilled with it,” said Tracy Smith. “The funny thing is we always thought we didn’t have enough land to grow food crops. Suzanne told us how to kill our lawn by laying down newspapers, cardboard and mulch. I don’t miss the lawn at all."

Suzanne Mackey acquired much of her knowledge about establishing a successful permaculture system from a year-long program at the Regenerative Design Institute in Marin.

Local wholesale and retail nurseries are witnessing unprecedented demand for vegetable plants, and many say they could scarcely keep enough tomatoes, basil and other veggies in stock this season.

But they’re not complaining about booming business - and instead are gearing up for an onslaught of gardeners who will be browsing nurseries in coming weeks seeking cabbage, broccoli, and other foods traditionally harvested during winter.

Suzanne Butterfield, a sales associate at King’s Nursery in Santa Rosa, has experienced her own conversion from horticulturist favoring flowers and lawn to new vegetable grower. This year, she ripped out a six-by-eight-feet circle in the middle of her brown, unwatered lawn to put in tomato and pepper plants.

“Everyone who walks by is looking at it,” said Butterfield, who lives in the Burbank Gardens neighborhood.

“This spot is most ideal for a vegetable garden. It’s very exciting watching a tomato grow compared to lawn.”

“I’m absolutely planning on expanding the vegetables and will turn over the rest of the sod for vegetables,” she said. “I plan to convert the whole lawn to pollinator-friendly, low water use plants.”

Butterfield waters the veggies with a once-a-week trickle, and said that’s plenty as long as the soil is well amended with compostl The slow water coaxes the plant roots to go deep, leading to a healthy plant.

Among the voracious vegetable customers at King’s Nursery this year have been parents who want their young children to learn where their food originates, said Butterfield.

“The vegetable business has grown by leaps and bounds and taken off exponentially. We even ran out of carrot seeds,” she said.

Daria Morrill of Cottage Gardens nursery in Petaluma witnessed the same stampede for vegetables this year, with practically every customer’s cart containing vegetable plants. She said sales of the plants doubled from last year, and food crops expanded ten-fold from what it used to be at the 19-year-old nursery.

“Definitely lawns are being phased out and people are being gutsy, putting veggie gardens in their front yards. Sometimes the front of their land is bigger than their backyards,” she said. “People are looking to be part of the green movement and live sustainably.”

Among her top sellers have been heirloom tomatoes like Black Krim, Brandywine, and Sungold, basil, and lemon cucumbers. Customers also wanted fig, pomegranate and honey crisp apple trees.

“Berries were ballistic, with people wanting thornless blackberries, raspberries and blueberries, and kiwi sales were huge,” she said.

Sebastopol-based Sweetwater Nursery is a wholesale, organic grower supplying vegetable plants to Whole Foods markets and retail nurseries from Sacramento to San Jose.

Owner Elise Loveday-Brown cultivates vegetable starts inside a one-acre plastic-covered nursery, and notices a steady increase in customers seeking a variety of edible plants - including oddities like red and gold celery and Italian black kale.

“If I can sell it, I’ll grow it. Our business is sort of recession-proof,” said Loveday-Brown. “We only grow what we know will do well.”

“People are more adventurous. They’re growing year round and it used to be only in summer. It’s fun for us. People are trying turnips and rutabagas. The sky is the limit and the customer base is eager and willing. We live in an incredible Mediterranean climate and it’s really exciting to us,” she said.

“More people are spending time at home and in their yards. When people have success and say, ‘I grew that,’ they want to do it again,” said Loveday-Brown.

“If you put something in every week, you will harvest every week,” she said. “It’s so magical.”