Can you turn an ordinary front lawn into a productive vegetable garden in a single season? This photo series says yes. It was posted to Imgur and Reddit in 2013 by Luke Keegan, who lives in Oakland, California, and it has been shared around the world ever since, usually under the headline of a man who "started with some boxes."
The facts are simpler and more useful than the viral version. According to Keegan's own account, quoted by the blog Messy Nessy Chic, the setup took three weekends: one to build eight raised beds of about 6 by 4 feet from reclaimed redwood, one to fill them with compost the city was giving away for free, and one for irrigation and planting. After that, he said, upkeep took as little as 15 minutes a day, and his girlfriend did much of the gardening.
Below, each photo is explained in order, from bare grass to a yard full of beets, peas, peppers and sunflowers, followed by practical lessons if you are thinking of doing the same with your own lawn.
Building the beds
The starting point: rectangular wooden frames laid directly on the grass of a small city front yard, with parked cars and neighbouring houses just beyond. Keegan used reclaimed barn redwood, a wood that resists rot naturally, so it did not need chemical treatment. Leaving paths between the boxes makes every plant reachable without stepping on the soil.
The beds have now been filled with dark compost from a municipal giveaway. Many cities hand out free compost made from residents' green waste, and it is an easy way to fill raised beds cheaply. Because no one walks on the beds, the soil stays loose and roots can spread without fighting compaction.
Seedlings are up in neat rows, and the grass between the beds has been smothered with a layer of wood chips. Small stakes and supports have appeared for climbing crops. Wood-chip paths keep mud down, hold moisture and slowly break down into organic matter.
Water, paths and borders
Seen from the porch, the whole lawn is now a grid of beds and mulch. Keegan described the watering system as the hardest part of the project. Getting water evenly to every bed without daily hand-watering is the step most beginners underestimate.
A close view of the drip lines running into each bed, with a tall trellis on the left for climbing plants. Drip irrigation puts water at the roots instead of spraying leaves and pavement, which saves water and helps prevent leaf diseases. A simple timer can make the whole garden almost self-watering.
String trellises now stretch over the beds, and young greens fill several boxes. Along the sidewalk edge, concrete blocks form a low border. Vertical supports let peas, beans and cucumbers grow up rather than out, which matters in a small yard.
The cinder-block border runs the length of the property, its hollow cells filled with soil. Keegan planted herbs in them, partly to attract bees. It is a cheap way to turn the edge of a yard into extra growing space.
The first harvests: greens and roots
A bowl of arugula, one of the first crops ready to eat. Arugula and other salad greens grow fast, often giving a first cut within a month of sowing. That quick reward is why many gardeners plant them first.
A single spinach leaf the size of a hand. Spinach likes cool weather, which suits the mild coastal climate of the San Francisco Bay Area. In hotter places it tends to bolt to seed as soon as summer arrives.
Freshly pulled beets with bright magenta stems. Both the roots and the leaves are edible, and the greens can be cooked like chard. Beets are a good crop for loose raised-bed soil because the roots can swell without obstruction.
A row of radishes pushing their red shoulders out of the soil. Radishes are among the fastest vegetables of all, many varieties maturing in under a month. Gardeners often sow them between slower crops to use the space twice.
Carrots in orange, red and purple, arranged in a circle like a sunburst. Coloured carrots are older types and modern heirloom mixes, not a novelty of genetic engineering. Deep, stone-free compost is what lets them grow straight.
Pea pods hanging among the vines, with orange flowers glowing behind them. Peas, like other legumes, work with soil bacteria to fix nitrogen. Picking pods regularly keeps the plants producing.
Sharing the surplus
A hand-painted "Free veggies" sign next to a pile of zucchini and yellow squash. With eight beds, the yard produced more than one household could eat, so Keegan set out a box for neighbours. A free produce stand is also one of the easiest ways to win over people who doubted the project.
A thick bundle of green onions, roots still attached. Green onions can be cut and left to regrow, and they take up very little space. They are a reliable crop for beginners.
A bowl of freshly picked green beans. Pole beans climb the trellises and keep producing for weeks if harvested often. Bush types stay compact and suit smaller beds.
Summer crops
Tomatillos growing inside their papery husks. A staple of Mexican salsa verde, they are close relatives of tomatoes. Most varieties need at least two plants nearby to set fruit well.
A bumpy cucumber hiding under the leaves. Cucumbers grow fast in warm weather and can double in size within a couple of days. Training them up a trellis keeps the fruit clean and easy to find.
A single glossy pepper hanging from its stem. Peppers like heat and steady water and are slower to mature than most crops in this garden. In cooler coastal climates a warm, sunny bed makes a real difference.
A cluster of cherry tomatoes, with one already turning orange. Tomatoes ripen from the stem outward, so a truss often has fruit at every stage. Picking as they colour encourages the plant to keep flowering.
A large yellow squash blossom. Squash plants make male and female flowers, and only the female ones, with a tiny fruit at the base, become squash. The male flowers are edible and are often stuffed and fried.
Flowers, herbs and the finished yard
Pink and red zinnias mixed with purple verbena and blue borage. Flowers among vegetables are more than decoration: they draw bees and other pollinators that squash, cucumbers and tomatoes depend on. Borage flowers are edible too.
A wider view of the same flower bed in full bloom. Zinnias grow quickly from seed and keep blooming if cut. A mixed planting like this also gives beneficial insects somewhere to live.
Sunflowers and purple verbena rising behind the beds. Tall sunflowers can act as a living screen at the edge of a garden. Their seed heads later feed birds.
The cinder-block border now full of herbs, with chard and greens filling the beds behind. Herbs like thyme, oregano and marjoram cope well with the dry, shallow pockets of soil in blocks. Their flowers are favourites of bees.
The house seen through a jungle of sunflowers, trellised vines and flowers in full summer growth. A few months earlier this was plain lawn. The same space now produces food, flowers and habitat.
Next door: the lawn for comparison
A neighbouring yard with patchy, dried-out grass and a few shrubs. In a dry California summer, keeping a lawn green takes a lot of water. The comparison was part of the joke when the photos went viral.
Another nearby house fronted by worn, brownish grass. Lawns are not wrong, but they give little back for the water and mowing they need. Keegan's photos made the case for an alternative more vividly than any argument could.
Should you replace your lawn with vegetables?
Lawns cover a striking amount of land. A 2005 NASA-led study estimated that irrigated lawns in the United States cover about 128,000 square kilometres, around three times the area of irrigated corn, and landscaping accounts for a large share of household water use. Turning even part of a yard into food beds can save water and put fresh food on the table.
- Check the rules first. Some cities and homeowners' associations restrict front-yard gardens or require them to look tidy.
- Start small. Two or three beds you can keep up with beat eight beds that go wild by July.
- Mind the wood. Use naturally rot-resistant or untreated wood, or line older treated timber, especially the arsenic-based kind common before 2004.
- Plan water early. A drip system on a timer is the difference between a garden that thrives and one that dies on holiday.
- Mix in flowers. Pollinators raise yields of squash, cucumbers and tomatoes.
- Expect a surplus. A free box on the sidewalk turns curious neighbours into fans.
Sources: Photos: Luke Keegan via Imgur (2013), as reported by Messy Nessy Chic: The little urban veggie garden; earlier shares by The Meta Picture and True Activist; Wikipedia: Raised-bed gardening; Wikipedia: Lawn.
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