Front garden allotment

What, use your front space to grow plants that will feed you all and look beautiful? Utter madness.

Only joking - it is a brilliant idea and you never know, you might inspire your neighbours to follow suit!

Even on a smaller scale, I remember being impressed by the front garden of a house in Lauterbrunnen. I don't think that this is the same one, but it's a similar setting with the garden up on a retaining wall above the street:
maps.app.goo.gl/Z6drwtK4tdWJ5p2j 6

I guess I have something of a potager garden. I bought some herbs from https://www.kitchengardenplantcentre.co.uk/herbs/ and they arrived well packed. Also keep looking at Urban Herbs but I think I have enough now. Of course if you have a good garden centre you don't need to buy online, but they do have some nice and unusual varieties.

I put courgettes and tomato plants in my front garden as it gets the sun. Biggest problem can be passers-by stealing your produce

I have fruit and veg in the front garden
So do a couple of my neighbours, although not most of them. Nothing has ever been stolen by humans. Blackbird, slugs and badgers are a different story! Definitely don't advise you plant sweetcorn unless you have fortifications, as it's like crack for badgers.

My blueberry bushes are flowering now and look beautiful with their white bell flowers. No different to other shrubs. You can get some very attractive veg plants and herbs.

It has also been a talking point with being out the front more and I have definitely got to know certain neighbours and dog walkers better because of it.

You are not allowed high brick walls but are you allowed anything else, such as fences or plants and if so, is it to a specified height limit? It would be easy to grow some screening plants along the front if allowed. Even a low evergreen hedge at the front can be an attractive feature and would provide a break in the view to the vegetable garden.

Oh do that's lovely! My DGPs bought a house with acres of land because my DGF loved gardening in particularly growing fruits and vegetables. They had a bit of lawn for the DGC and a bit with flowers. He often mentioned it was a shame they didn't have a proper front garden to grow more.

Go for it. If anyone mutters, murmur "food security"! In our small town we have a group who have turned all town planters into perennials/herbs/tomatoes - it's highly attractive and I know where to go if I want fennel/parsley/chives! And we also have a great group in the county who teach primary and secondary pupils how to grown things on spare bits of land (yes, lucky to have spare bits of land, some quite small).

Late to the thread but I just wanted to add my voice to those saying do it.

This was completely normal where I grew up. My Dad was a keen gardener who grew nearly all of our veg. In the back garden we had a small lawn and a few flowers but the rest was fruit and veg. The front garden was entirely a vegetable patch.

We were not the only ones. Many, if not most, of our neighbours used at least some of their garden for veg. In fact, when my uncle, who lived a few doors down, decided to turn his front garden in to a lawn everyone thought he was being a bit weird, including his wife! He grew this lawn that was like a shrine, as in you were not allowed to walk on it or play on it, it was just for looking at. Their next door neighbour had his whole front garden planted with brussel sprouts which was considered much more sensible behaviour. Uncle was judged the eccentric one!

I honestly had no idea that people from elsewhere might find this strange until I had some friends from University come to stay in the holidays and they were flabbergasted to see vegetables in people's front gardens.

Do go for it I think it is a lovely idea.

Mrs Bucket is in the building!

It's your garden OP do what you want with it. It's not like you're dumping old white goods on it or sticking in a hot tub with some pink flamingos and a bar!

I'm not sure I'd do a mixed wigwam because sweet peas are mildly toxic (and some people might have a more pronounced reaction). I know they look different but mistakes could easily happen, especially if you're picking at mangetout stage.

I love this idea. We've just added some step over apples to our front garden as there is no room at the back. The blossom is pretty and they are so low they won't block light to our front windows

@Cityvillagegardener do a mix of perennial and veg. We have a couple of step over apples. Do a wigwam mix of sweet peas and beans which looks fab. And chard - rainbow lights

I've been considering doing the same with our front garden, which until last week was rampant with brambles.

I've already partially planted an edible native hedge (so far have rowan, hawthorn & hazel, non native walnut & have wild plum & cherry saplings I've grown from collected stones).

I do this as front garden much bigger than back .I have a raised bed and large containers for carrots etc .But I also have annuals flowering bushes fruit bushes and a apple tree, rhubarb and roses all mixed in .I love our garden its always full of insects and birds and something growing all seasons . Also have a lot of herbs like lemon balm growing in spaces so it's actually not the biggest amount of weeding .Always a bonus
Give the neighbours some produce always welcome and enjoy your space .

We grow veg in raised beds made from oak railway sleepers which we bought new. We also have bantams for eggs. All out in our front garden. People stop to chat to us when we're out there and the bantams have quite their own following 🥰
No one has complained and the last house that sold along our road went for just over 850k so I don't think we have lowered local house prices 🤣

This kind of thing https://pin.it/3NRw9mBG5 is really typical in Switzerland in a front, side or back garden. They look amazing in summer and autumn but can look pretty scratty in winter/early spring unless you really actively do something to keep it attractive. Could you section your garden so that the bit most visible to the road has some constant life?

YANBU, maybe leave a strip of grass in front of the veg beds if that’s practical. I would recommend raised beds.

I have an allotment, and they can get abit messy at certain times of the year.

my allotment is sectioned off in four big beds and a small bed by the shed and seating area. By the end of October, two are totally empty, dug over, covered in a lot (two or three transit tippers on each bed) of horse manure, and covered in tarpaulin until the middle of March, when they are uncovered, fully rotovated over, and the peas, beetroot and chard goes in. Waiting for the other bits out of the greenhouse by the end of April.

One bed has all the winter veg, and now (winter veg gone) I’ve planted onions and shallots in it now to be ready for this winter to be empty.

the fruit bushes around the edges on the path, get proper compost yearly.

I personally don’t have a problem with it, I actually love my allotment, find it peaceful and good for my fitness. I’m also vegetarian so I do like trying to grow an array of different vegetables that aren’t in the supermarkets.

I do have a fair sized greenhouse at home, and I also put strawberries in the hanging baskets, but I’m not really overlooked by neighbours.

Good luck with it, if you choose to do it, you’ve done it before do you know the highs and lows of it already :-)

If you're worried, why not try a potager garden?

I don't think you owe your neighbours anything more than not keeping piles of junk in your garden or creating a place that attracts vermin.

I'd grow whatever I wanted. How often do people stop and look at their neighbours' gardens, anyway? You see them when you pass by, but you're unlikely to sit and contemplate the view. You can twist yourself into a pretzel trying to make everyone happy, but someone will always find something to complain about. It's not as though it's destroying the value of the neighbourhood, and it's easy enough to tear it all out and let it revert to lawn if you change your mind.

A neighbour grows tomatoes in pots in his front garden, always makes me smile when I see them growing. You could have people with sticky fingers knicking stuff as they're passing though.

Intersperse plants like nasturtiums and sweet peas which deter slugs and add colour. Agree raised beds and containers will provide a good base . Some tomatoes and strawberries can be grown in hanging baskets.

A house round the corner has done this plus all the way down the side too - I love walking buy and seeing what’s there and what’s popping up next / nicely done with spring bulbs in abundance now and as the year goes on lots of chrysanthemums and other flowers between the fruit and veg - just fabulous !