Fritz Haeg Talks Edible Estates on "The Martha Stewart Show"

My green-thumbed architect friend Fritz Haeg appeared on The Martha Stewart Show this morning to discuss his Edible Estates project, which is reseeding our ideas about personal turf, the suburban lawn, and an “in-your-neighbor’s-face” food production plan. Haeg lives, creates, gardens, and teaches in and around his multi-purpose and very cool geodesic dome complex in Los Angeles (pictured above). You can catch a repeat of this episode tomorrow night at 6 pm on Fine Living Network (channel 122).

He has also written a book called Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn about this ingenious project. The Edible Estates project proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn with a highly productive edible landscape. It was initiated by architect and artist Fritz Haeg on Independence Day, 2005, with the planting of the first regional prototype garden in the geographic center of the United States, Salina, Kansas. Since then three more prototype gardens have been created, in Lakewood, California; Maplewood, New Jersey and London, England. Edible Estates regional prototype gardens will ultimately be established in nine cities across the United States. Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn documents the first four gardens with personal accounts written by the owners, garden plans and photographs illustrating the creation of the gardens--from ripping up the grass to harvesting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs. Essays by Haeg, landscape architect Diana Balmori, garden and food writer Rosalind Creasy, author Michael Pollan and artist and writer Lesley Stern set the Edible Estates project in the context of larger issues concerning the environment, global food production and the imperative to generate a sense of community in our urban and suburban neighborhoods. This smart, affordable and well-designed book also includes reports and photographs from the owners of other edible front yards around the country, as well as helpful resources to guide you in making your own Edible Estate.