What had held me back til now?

In my childhood home(s), there was always food growing! Some of my earliest memories were of my Mother's garden, picking peas straight from the pod. Soooooo sweet and delicious! There were fruit trees in the house I grew up in, at least 4... apples, cherries and peaches. A huge grape trellis with vines of green and black seeded grapes provided our patio with privacy from the neighbors. We made jelly with my grandmother...of her home-grown peaches and plums, and our grapes and cherries. Yet, once I left home, it never crossed my mind to have a garden, and when choosing trees for my first house, I avoided anything that fruited! In fact, by the time I had cleaned up a ton of rotten fruit off the back lawn, you might even say I had developed an aversion to home grown food.

Now, I find myself in a smallish house in Sparks. There is a 40 foot ash tree in our small back yard, and a 60 foot tall oak tree in the yard behind us. We have a very nice, very shady backyard. It is great for relaxing on the patio on a summer afternoon, or for the kids to play in. It is NOT good for growing food. Most edible plants require 6-8 hours of sunlight each day. They turn all that energy from the sun into the food I want to grow. For several years I presumed that in order to have a garden, I would need to move. We had even started looking @ houses.

The thing that changed my mind was a concept I stumbled on called "edible landscaping." The basic idea is that edible plants can also be beautiful enough to grow anywhere in your yard, and that vegetibles can grow as well in a beautiful pot, or in interesting patterns, as they do in long, predictible rows. This was revolutionary for me. I had been planning a fence to hide the one small strip of sunny ground we have in our backyard before I converted it into a few boring looking rows of veggies. Now I am scemeing a full frontal assault on my front lawn. I am planning an entire side yard of espaliered plumb trees and other tasty delights, just north of my driveway! I am contemplating ripping out the ornamental cherry tree in my front yard to put in something more fruitful! Eventually, I am hoping that every sunny square foot of my soil will be producing food.
But, I have still not figured out where to put the chicken coop.