Urban Farmers Plant Seeds Of Change

CBS Evening News: Families Ditching The Front Yard In Favor Of A Vegetable Garden

(CBS)  Jules Dervaes and his three children are groundbreaking pioneers. CBS news correspondent Bill Whitaker reports they are at the forefront of a fast-growing movement in these hard economic times: getting rid of the sacred front lawn and replacing it with the urban farm.

"We turned ours into a garden in the front yard, and the side yards," Dervaes said, where they grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, grapes and apples.

This veritable Eden is on a standard lot on an average street in Pasadena. In fact the whole lot would fit on the football field at the Rose Bowl down the street seven times.

"We are cultivating one-tenth of an acre and can grow up to 6,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables per year.

So much food, they started selling organic produce to upscale restaurants. They say they're saving the earth, and they know they're saving money. Daughter Anais says they spend a few hundred dollars a month on staples they can't grow, like flour and rice.

"Everything else is homegrown," Anais said.

Spending on vegetable gardening in the U.S. shot up a whopping 21 percent in just the last year. For the Dervaeses, it's a full time job, but anybody can garden, they say.

"Most of this stuff was picked just this morning," said Michael Fonti, showing off a bounty from his front lawn in suburban Los Angeles. Architect Fritz Haeg helped them transform their lawn.

"It happens to be one of the most wasteful, useless spaces," Haeg said of lawns.

Eyeing some 30 million front lawns in America, he's the Johnnie Appleseed of gardening, sowing his green revolution from California to Kansas, New Jersey, Baltimore, and even London.

"It's such a natural thing, to grow your own food and yet, such a radical thing," Haeg said.

It's seeds of change, taking us back to the future.

[newsiegirl]

I've been following the Dervaes family for years on their website www.pathtofreedom.com

It's great to see the recognition from major news industry. Too bad it took so long and only because the Obamas are "doing it." Regular Americans have been doing this for a long long time.

I find it bit amusing that the Foti family are also featured on this story. They were Fritz Haeg's first project and media stunt. The first year they were featured on many different medias, had a blog and were soaking up the attention. Who knows where they are now? I can't find anything about them beyond the first year (2005). Not an update from them for 4 years. Gardening for real victory takes more than one year.

[38654ob]

We've had a garden for decades. We don't even have to plant it anymore, it just comes up naturally from the seeds left over from previous garden's produce that didn't get picked. Our tomatoes are particularly good, as they've adapted over the years to the local climate and soil.

We also have about two dozen fruit trees.

I doubt it's saved any money but it's sure satisfying to eat a salad made with 100% home grown ingredients. We get produce from late June through late September.

[gce651]

Plant in this pattern: bamboo....weed.....bamboo.....weed!

[far_point200]

I'm planting something else. Something a little more stimulating and gets more tax free dollars per bushel. :)

[trueblueusa]

I `ve had a vegetable garden All of my life,...from helping both sets of grandparents almost 50 yrs ago til now,..It`s Very rewarding,..There`s Nothing like growing Your own Food & in Indiana,we take our gardens Very Seriously !

[wtcmedic911]

Fantastic idea.... Just make sure to get soil and perhaps veg. tested for heavy metals. especially lead from the days we had leaded fuel. concentrations were heavier in the cities.