A year ago, an acclaimed architect-artist swooped into Baltimore and tore out a front lawn, leaving a garden and a budding revolution in its place.
Has either one borne fruit?
Clarence Ridgley, a supervisor at a plastic bottle factory, surrendered his West Baltimore yard to Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates project, a deliciously subversive attempt to replace grass with plants people can use.
After checking in with Ridgley recently, I'd say it's easier to coax peppers, grapes and turnips out of the ground than it is to persuade people to grow food out front.
Ridgley, 61, got plenty of produce out of his garden last year. Too much, when it came to the turnips, which are not a family favorite.
Ridgley turned up recipes for the black beans, Swiss chard and other veggies that were new to him, and most were hits with the family. His two foster children, a little girl and boy, have eaten it up.
"They'll eat tomatoes off the vine, blueberries," he said. "They're real country kids now. Right now, we eat lots of greens. We're always eating salads. I come out and eat broccoli right out of the ground."
The garden not only improved Ridgley's diet, but made him better acquainted with neighbors. People he only used to exchange waves with started stopping by to check out what he was growing. He invited them to take veggies home, forcing tomatoes on them when a bumper crop came in.
"I had to bag them up and put them on my neighbors' doorsteps," he said.
Less reluctant to raid the garden were the kids who passed his fruit trees on their way to and from a nearby middle school.
"I didn't get very many cherries, I'll say that," he said with a laugh.
A team of volunteers helped Ridgley plant last year's garden, but he's having no trouble keeping it up on his own. He's changed some of the crops. (Along with the turnips, he nixed the sunflowers that he thought had made he yard "a little jungly.")
But Ridgley has held onto the artistic sensibilities Haeg sowed in him.
On a tour of the garden, he pointed out how he placed multicolor Swiss chard among the potatoes for "some color relief" and strategically planted white cauliflower amid pale green cabbage to "give more of a presentation."
The project has inspired a few people to take up gardening, if not quite in full-frontal Edible Estates style.
Ridgley took me to see the guy next door, who hadn't planted veggies for 15 years. Suddenly this spring, Randolph Jones, 52, is growing tomatoes, peppers, squash and green beans.
"I saw his front," Jones said, "and I got the fever."
But revolutions, like gardens, take time.
Jones planted his veggies along the side of his house and in his backyard. Out front, he stuck with marigolds and begonias.
Ridgley explained: "His wife wouldn't give him the front."
Connect the dots
While Bob Ehrlich wonders whether Maryland is in the mood for a Republican comeback, his pal at Towson University is already basking in electoral victory. Communication and rhetoric professor Richard Vatz won the 2009 Faculty Member of the Year award last week. Said Vatz: "At the very least, this should prove that students like some classes taught by conservatives." ... Johns Hopkins University senior Scott Menke advanced to the semifinals last week in the Jeopardy! College Championship. Tune in Monday to find out if he advances to the finals. Either way, he walks away with at least $10,000.
