SEARCH
MENU
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
Creative & Frugal Home & Garden Ideas

Empress of Dirt

  • Grow
  • Make
  • Ideas

New here?

Dig in!

Start here

My City Garden: Front Yard Vegetable Garden, Fruits, & Flowers

Published on January 4, 2020Last updated October 6, 2021 ♛ By Melissa J. Will

This post contains affiliate links.
Read full disclosure statement here.

Share on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

This little city garden features lots of raised beds with vegetables and fruits tucked amongst the flowering perennials and a small pond, showing how you can grow a lot of plants in a small space.

If you love clematis, be sure to check out my tips here: Clematis 101 Easy Care Guide.

Front yard flower and vegetable garden.

Little City Front Yard Veggie Garden

Front yard garden packed with vegetables and flowers.

This was my first garden which I started from scratch.

When we bought the house, there was just grass lawn and one shrub, rock-hard clay soil, and terrible slopes. It was a clean slate. A pathetic, small clean slate.

Front Vegetable & Flower Garden

Situated on a small urban lot, the main front garden is just 8-feet wide. I didn’t intend to become a front yard vegetable grower but after a few seasons testing vegetables in the shady backyard, I knew I wasn’t going to get harvests without more sun.

No one else in the neighborhood had a front garden and certainly did not have veggie boxes, but my love of gardening was apparently stronger than my fear of bylaw officers, so I went ahead and planted where sun shines.

I wasn’t actually sure what the bylaws said—I just knew I couldn’t take no for an answer.

This first image is from the road. These photos were taken after around 5 years of trial and error. I had no idea when I started how important it was to get the soil right first. Once I started adding good compost on top of the clay soil, things began to grow. You can’t really change the nature of your soil, but with clay, there’s always the option to layered up, which I did.

I jokingly used the broken statue head (below) to hold my bean teepee poles in place but it worked so well I kept using it.

Raised garden bed and perennial flowers in a small urban garden.
Broken statue head works nicely to support bean poles

I initially tried planting in the ground in the front yard without much success. The entire yard has slopes which presents a variety of challenges. One rain storm and seeds, plants, and compost would wash away!

When I finally surrendered to the advice to use raised beds, my luck changed—because everything stays where it’s planted!

I added raised beds everywhere with the exception of places I was not permitted to (due to easements or underground infrastructure).

I could grow a good amount of vegetables (and some fruits) with extra to give away.

It saddens me greatly how many people face bylaws or HOA rules forbidding front yard vegetable growing. We’d all be better off if it was the norm.


Grass lawn and wildflower lawn.

Related: How to Replace Lawn With Wildflower Seed Mix


After just one season with raised beds, I was a convert. Everything did so much better in boxes where I could control the soil and compost.

Rows of raised beds in a small city garden.
Front yard with raised beds for vegetables and flowers

With everything out in the open and close to the road, I worried my garden might fall prey to vandalism or theft.

Much to my surprise, the garden had the opposite effect.

Nothing was ever damaged or stolen, and, when I worked in the garden, all sorts of neighbors would stop by to chat. I am certain without the garden we would have never met.

Some would tell me about the gardens they grew up with, where parents or grandparents grew crops to feed their families each year.

Others would ask questions about how to get started with their own.

If I had extra produce, I was happy to share it, hoping it would offer encouragement.

The garden you see here is included in the book, Gardening Your Front Yard by Tara Nolan. If you are looking for front garden ideas, you will love it.

Keep reading to see how I created a pond in a raised bed and the plants in the side and back gardens.


Gardening Your Front Yard book cover.

Gardening Your Front Yard
Projects and Ideas for Big and Small Spaces

by Tara Nolan 

See it at Amazon

Gardening Your Front Yard is an active, inspiring resource that shows you how to treat your front yard like a backyard without sacrificing beauty, from choosing the right plants to building front patios and walkways.


Pond in a Raised Bed

I originally installed a small pond form in the shady backyard. While it was very attractive to wildlife (which I very much wanted), we couldn’t really see it from the house.

That’s when I got the idea to put one by the front porch. (I would never do this if there were any small children around. Safety first.)

Because the soil was clay and mixed with rubbish dumped by the house builder, I could not dig a hole for it so I put it in a raised bed instead.

Small pond in a raised bed and container planters by walkway.
Small pond in a raised bed in front garden

I planted sedums, pansies, and lavender in the box. That was the happiest lavender ever!

Purple lavender growing in a raised garden bed.
Lavender growing in raised bed with pond

Here’s another view of the pond. Over time I filled in the area around it and added fish, of course.

Pink water lily blooming in small garden pond built in a raised bed.
Water lily blooming in pond in raised bed

Small pond built in a raised garden bed.

Related: How to Build a Pond in a Raised Garden Bed


Growing Veggies in Containers

After seeing the success of the raised bed vegetables, I got container-growing-mania. I started growing everything I could think of in pots by the front of the house.


Creating a pollinator garden in a repurposed trashcan.

Related: How to Create a Pollinator-Friendly Container Garden


This included potatoes, a variety of herbs, tomatoes, leafy greens, zucchini, beans, peas, squash, and more.

Garden containers with potato and tomato plants plus purple lavender.
You can grow just about anything in containers

Stepping out the front door to pick food for dinner is the best.

Fresh picked vegetables from garden.
Harvesting veggies in the front yard vegetable garden

I was trying to find ‘before’ pictures but I don’t think I took any. This next one was taken in spring just after replacing the wood on one of the boxes and shows the basic layout before the plants have taken over.

Row of garden boxes on urban front yard.
Every bit of space has been turned into garden

After careful study I can confirm you cannot grow enough flowers. More is more.

Garden bed with daisies, coneflowers, delphiniums, and more.
Perennial flower garden in front yard

To keep within my budget, I grew most plants from seed. That was also the secret to filling my (much larger) current garden with flowers.


Ebook

Seed Starting For Beginners ebook cover.

Seed Starting for Beginners
Sow Inside Grow Outside

by Melissa J. Will

NEW EDITION | Everything you need to get started with indoor seed starting for indoor and outdoor plants. Grow what you want—any time of year!

About This Ebook | Visit Ebook Shop

This ebook is a digital file (PDF format) you save to your device. It is not a physical product.

Buy Now
$8 US

PayPal, Credit Card, Apple Pay


Side Garden with Pathway

The side of the house was long, narrow, and sloped. Despite limited dappled sun, it ended up being an excellent place to grow delphiniums.

In this next photo you can see some garden art on the fence, lilies, arbor with vine, and a mass of raspberry bushes on the right side of the image.

Garden path and fence with garden art.
The shady side garden with flowers and raspberry bushes

Next to the side garden was our back deck, high up off the ground. I took this next photo from up on the deck looking down at the lilies.

This was a year or two before we started getting red lily beetles which eventually destroyed all of them.

Top view of orange lilies in garden bed.

Because the side garden was so narrow, it was hard to see the garden from the house. I placed mirrors on the fences so I could see the flowers from the kitchen window.

Garden mirror on fence.

This has more photos of my garden mirrors: 15 Garden Mirror Ideas for Backyards. And yes, never add mirrors to the garden unless you are certain it’s safe.

Flowers & Wildlife

Once you add a source of water (the pond) and lots of plants, wildlife moves in—exactly as I hoped.

It felt like wild bird headquarters and I loved it.

Male cardinal bird on post in flower garden.
Male cardinal watching over the flower garden

Eventually I got a new neighbor who also loved gardening and we joined our front side beds together to form one mass of beautiful plants.

Purple flowers and green foliage in garden border.
Front flower garden

The neighbor behind us had a lot of fruit trees and pet chickens (not shown) which gave a nice country vibe despite being in a city.

Red male cardinal standing on top of garden arbor.
You know you’re gardening right when the birds approve

In the last year we lived there, we made some huge changes, unaware we would be moving soon.

We added a small swimming pool with two levels of decking. The top deck was enclosed to make it a three-season sitting space and outdoor office.

The clematis vine you see in the next photo just flourished in that location. We moved the following winter and I couldn’t bring it with me which kind of broke my heart.

In fact, I realized the following year, when I was starting our current garden from scratch, that I really missed the old garden and I felt myself mourning for it, particularly each spring. Grief is such an odd beast and definitely not linear.

Steps to deck surrounded by purple clematis vine.
Clematis growing in side garden

One funny memory is this raccoon. I was swinging on the porch swing one day and felt a little extra weight as I went back and forth. I lifted a blanket to find this baby raccoon snoring underneath.

When I said our garden became wildlife central, I wasn’t kidding.

Raccoon sleeping on blanket.
Baby racoon napping on the porch swing


I hope you enjoyed this little tour of our old garden.

It’s where I learned to grow plants through much trial and error and I’ll always have fond memories of it.

~Melissa the Empress of Dirt ♛

Empress of Dirt ebook titles.

Empress of Dirt
Ebooks

Reader’s favorite tips and tutorials on various topics compiled into handy downloadable ebooks.

Visit Ebook Shop
Front yard garden packed with vegetables and flowers.
Share on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

Free Newsletters

Signup for creative & frugal home and garden ideas!

This site is spam-free and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

Melissa J. Will - Empress of DirtWelcome!
I’m Melissa J. Will a.k.a. the Empress of Dirt (Ontario, Canada).
Join me as I share creative + frugal home & garden ideas with a dash of humor.
More: Contact/About
New here? Dig in!  |  Our Podcast

Handy Resources

  • Soil Calculator
  • Garden Name Generator
  • Printable Garden Planner
  • Favorite Garden Quotes
  • Botanical Plant Names 101
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Some articles on this site contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Affiliate and Ad Disclosure | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 · Empress of Dirt Creative + Frugal Home & Garden Ideas