Havana: The Suburban Micro-farm

St Austell

Havana: The suburban micro-farm

Do you know what the most intensively cultivated crop is? Its not maize, or wheat. Not tomatoes or potatoes but lawns. Lawns that require intensive maintenance yet provide absolutely nothing for the community or for wildlife. At Havana; a suburban bungalow in St Austell, this illogical cultural norm is being challenged. Lawn is being removed, top soil is applied and what was once grass is being used to grow food! Welcome to Havana, the suburban micro-farm, where crops are grown in the front garden for all to see. What good is a lawn anyway?

Havana: The sub-urban micro farm. Food Forest and market garden concept scaled down appropriately for a domestic setting.

Before:

Perennial edible planting. Ornamental, Edible and permanent!

Design Process:

Havana was my own rented property in St.Austell. When I arrived the property had a badly kept grass lawn in the front garden (above). I felt that having a lawn in the front garden was fairly useless, it wasn't suitable for sunbathing as it was in full view of the neighbours. The garden was also south facing so it received a significant amount of light. I wanted to create a garden with Edible Landscapes as well as beds for annual crops. However this was still a front garden and the overall scheme needed to be attractive. Havana needed to blend the ornamental and edible garden into, a beautiful garden with additional edible functions.

No-dig, square foot gardening bed at Havana

Tulbaghia violacea - an edible and ornamental allium with edible leaves and flowers.

Cucamelons! Mini cucumbers that look like mini water melons. Grown at Havana

Freshly picked radishes, from Havana.

Annual beds designed in SketchUp.

Spaghetti Squash grown at Havana.

When leaving the property, the garden was restored back to how we found it (although slightly improved!)

After:

Brief:

Grow an abundance of annual and perennial food crops using ecological methods, whilst maintaining an attractive, ornamental aesthetic. Appropriate to the setting and wider geographical location.

SketchUp master plan design - designating beds and paths.

Diverse range of harvested tomatoes from the annual beds at Havana

Challenges:

When the concept of Havana was pitched to the letting agent, we encountered some opposition. The landlords had concerns about the front garden of the property becoming a 'vegetable patch' as they didn't feel the space would be aesthetic. The landlords perceived a muddy allotment and didn't want anything like that in the garden which is a typical connotation attributed to edible gardens. We created some concept designs and set about challenging these perceptions, explaining edible landscaping and edible forest gardening. After a pitch and sending over some initial design ideas we received permission to go ahead and the story of Havana continued!