Clarence Ridgley points out to a neighbor the herb patch, the baby broccoli plants surrounded by onions and his mini-orchard.
Nothing unusual. These are staples of a backyard garden.
But this is a front yard in Baltimore. Drivers slow to stare. All the sturdy single-family houses from the 1920s and 1930s on this city street west of Druid Hill Park line up behind their green lawns. Except, now, Clarence and Rudine Ridgley's red brick and clapboard home is behind fruit trees, tomato cages, berry bushes and vegetables.
"I could do a lot with those fresh herbs," says Kendall Ricks, 49, a neighbor who works as a chef.
"I am going to have to keep an eye on him," teases Clarence Ridgley.
This is art - designed as food for thought, not only for the stomach.
For creator Fritz Haeg, the Ridgley house is the sixth installment in his ongoing project called Edible Estates, an agricultural experiment that is as much about people as it is about plants. It is an architectural-artistic-environmental-landscaping-social-political challenge that has homeowners swapping out grass for greens, a lawn for lunch.
Haeg is a Los Angeles-based architect by profession and an activist gardener by choice. His book, Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, was just published and the Whitney Museum in New York is featuring his work as part of its biennial.
Edible Estates has degrassed front yards since 2005, starting in Salina, Kan., nearly the geographic center of the United States. From there Haeg moved on to London and Maplewood, N.J., among other cities, before coming to Baltimore as part of the Contemporary Museum's Cottage Industry, which features six artistic expressions that take place on sites in the community. Set to open May 31, the exhibit will chronicle the Ridgley's yard with photographs as it grows.
What Haeg is proposing around the country - around the world - is nothing short of seditious in many a community:
Forget the monoculture vanity lawn that seals you, the homeowner, from the public and looks like every other useless patch of green upon which people expend time, money and chemicals. Instead, establish an organic harvestable landscape out front, with fruiting trees and vining vegetables, from which you, the locavore (those who favor food grown within their region), can feed your family.
"A lawn cuts across all social and political strata. It's our common experience," Haeg says.
