Ten Beautiful Small Edible Gardens

With some smart planning, small outdoor spaces can easily be transformed into beautiful, productive fruit and veggie gardens. Come take a look at 10 inviting edible gardens tucked into front yards, side yards, decks and balconies that show how you can really do a lot with modest square footage.

1. Front Yard Beds

Sitting pretty outside a Cape Cod-style cottage in Wellesley, Massachusetts, a pair of raised beds filled with frilly lettuce heads, broccoli and tomatoes look just as ornamental as more traditional flowers beds. While we usually think of placing kitchen gardens in the backyard, a sunny front yard can also be a great spot for growing fruits and veggies, and can also help maximize space in smaller lots.

2. Stock Tank for Crops

Galvanized metal stock tanks provide small-space kitchen gardens a deep soil reservoir for planting. This opens up growing options for larger-scale crops like artichokes, indeterminate tomatoes or dwarf fruit trees and allows for more layered planting in a single container. In this Oakland, California, backyard, a stock tanks holds tomatoes, mixed herbs and strawberries.

3. Contained Kitchen Garden

Measuring just 12 by 13 feet, this veggie garden in Newton, Massachusetts, is a great size for having plenty of produce without too much maintenance. The owners circled the veggie garden with a 4-foot-tall fence made of hardware cloth stretched between cedar posts, and they planted the raised beds with tomatoes, broccoli, beans, herbs and flowers.

4. Edible “Room Divider”

Even though most of the square footage of this 540-square-foot urban backyard in Seattle is taken up by a raised deck and lower fire pit, the landscape architect came up with a smart way to carve out growing space for seasonal veggies and herbs. A series of triangular raised beds act as an outdoor room divider and ease the grade change between the deck and the lower fire pit area.

5. Classic Raised Beds

A pair of 8-by-4-foot raised beds tucked into the backyard of a 1950s beach cottage in Manhattan Beach, California, grows supplemental veggies and herbs for a family of four. “We grow everything from tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, peas and even corn,” says homeowner Julie McMahon. The raised beds are hooked up to a drip irrigation system set on a timer to help cut down on maintenance and ensure consistent watering.

6. Mixed Veggies and Flowers

Crops and seasonal flowers grow side by side in this English gravel garden punctuated by small raised beds and in-ground planting beds. The flowers stand out like islands of color and attract beneficial pollinators to the veggies.

7. Window Box Edibles

Proving that no space is too small for veggies, this window box on a Northern California balcony is filled with bush beans and pollinator-attracting flowers.

8. Front Yard Farm

Chunky stone raised beds march down a slope in this front yard in Portland, Oregon. Bursting with foliage, including multicolored lettuces, mustard greens, collards, kale and peas twining up a trellis, the beds are as decorative as ornamental landscaping and offer more reward for the effort.

Note: Not all municipalities allow for planting veggies in the front yard. Check before planting, and always keep your plot neat.

9. Vertical Veggies

A vertical planting system edging a deck in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood offers a solution for planting in a small space. The four-tiered system provides planting pockets for a mix of herbs, edible greens and perennial flowers. The combination makes a lush, green backdrop that acts as a stunning focal point of the deck.

10. Multilevel Raised Beds

Incorporating a split-level system in raised beds makes for a more dynamic design in a small space by introducing more height variation. Use the different levels to corral crops based on mature heights — planting tall vegetables like tomatoes and corn to the back of the double-height bed where they will benefit from a larger soil reservoir. Plant lower-growing crops like lettuces and herbs in the lower front raised beds.