A Formerly Weedy Lot Now Brims With Edibles and Honeybees

A weedy dirt lot is probably the last thing you think of when you’re hungry. But photographers Adam Voorhes and Robin Finlay envisioned a lush backyard full of edibles for their barren backyard.

They turned to landscape designer B. Jane for help. She got to work creating shade and an entertainment space and adding plenty of food-producing plants. The homeowners are now flush with tomatoes, okra and other vegetables, as well as pecans, citrus, wild olives, prickly pear cactus (which they grill or add to margaritas), eggs from three roaming chickens and honey — lots and lots of honey. Voorhes harvests about 3 gallons of honey a year from his nearly 30,000 backyard bees. Hungry yet?

When Voorhes and Finlay bought the property, they replaced a chain-link fence with cedar planking. They also added an arbor and a water-catching system. Jane did the pavers, metal edging, design and plantings. “We wanted to mesh midcentury modern with agrarian,” says Jane, of B. Jane Gardens.

Here, trailing rosemary frames pavers that extend from the patio, where the couple keeps a grill for outdoor entertaining. Voorhes says the outdoor clotheslines dry laundry faster than their drying machine.

Planters in the corner hold lime, lemon and grapefruit trees.


Four garden beds contain mostly tomatoes, okra and vegetables. “We try to stick to what’s hard to get in good quality at the store,” Voorhes says. There are also basil, arugula, chard and Brussels sprouts.

Shredded hardwood mulch around the beds keeps the weeds down. A pea gravel path leads to a greenhouse that Voorhes built from a kit. He uses the space for seed starts and for growing tomatoes and basil through the winter.

Get Houzz guides to growing all the top backyard fruits and vegetables


BEFORE: Here you can see the weedy dirt lot surrounded by a chain-link fence that defined the backyard when Voorhes and Finlay (seen here being jumped on by their dog, Catfish) moved in.


AFTER: Looking from about the same viewpoint, we see two large pecan trees that provide shade for the Saint Augustine grass, allowing the homeowners to get away without watering it most of the time. During dry months, they fall back on their rain tanks.


Voorhes built the chicken coop, which Finlay has dubbed the “Chicken Taj Majal.” Chicken droppings provide fertilizer for the lawn, while their constant pecking helps aerate the grass. The plant nearest the coop is blue mist flower.


A welded and powder-coated water feature attracts blue jays, cardinals, jackals and bees. The hope was that it would lure the birds away from the tomatoes. “But it doesn’t really work,” Voorhes says. “It just gives them water to drink before they head right back to the garden beds.”


Five downspouts feed water into two large rain barrels, one a 1,000-gallon tank, the other a 700-gallon tank. All the water is used for the gardens.

Prickly pear cactus, seen here, gets grilled, used for margaritas or turned into jam.



Voorhes has been keeping bees for several years now. The bees work well for pollinating the yard and producing honey, which Voorhes mostly gives away.

More:
Beekeeping Anywhere for Fun, Food and Good Deeds
See guides on how to farm your yard
Houzz Survey: See What Homeowners Are Doing With Their Landscapes Now

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