Tour Matt Lebon's backyard food forest
Foodscaping is also known as edible landscaping, the idea that you can create a beautiful landscape that features edible fruit, herbs and other plants throughout the growing season. It doesn’t get much more local than right outside your door, and the flavors of these just-picked items are unmatched.
If you want to see what type of foodscape is possible in a typical city yard, look no further than Matt Lebon’s South City home. Over the course of about four seasons, Matt steadily made changes to his standard-issue yard, reshaping it into a foodscape that today is humming with life.
When you approach the brick home, you’re welcomed by a flowering, edible hedge of herbs and hibiscus, with fruit-producing fig trees, pawpaws and persimmons filling in the front yard. Out back, a beehive buzzes and a bark mulch path allows easy access to the perennial food-producing plants. There’s even a stack of shiitake logs tucked under a shady tree. Egg-laying ducks live in a pen off the side of the porch, cooling off in a small pool on hot summer days.
Learn more about Custom Foodscaping in Feast Magazine’s May 2019 profile.
Regenerative agriculture is exactly what it sounds like — a method of farming that regerates, or rebuilds, organic matter in the soil, restoring degraded soil biodiversity. This helps soil to store more carbon and also helps it retain precious water after a rain. Matt builds rain gardens and installs rain barrels to capture the water, directing it into the ground, where it belongs, rather than allowing the resource to run off into the city sewers.
It may seem daunting to apply permaculture principles to your own yard, but there are easy ways to get started. Matt suggests beginning by simply growing herbs — perennial herbs like rosemary and chives along with annuals like basil. Composting your food scraps is another easy and beneficial step to take — compost tumblers are inexpensive and easy to use, allowing you to divert uneaten food and the sad produce you used to throw away out of the landfill.
Below are some shots of our visit to Matt’s yard — he encourages everyone to “have your landscape and eat it too” and you can explore more of his work on his website.
