YOU’D LIKE TO have a vegetable garden, but you have noidea how to do it.

Or, you know how to do it, but you just don’t have the time.Or, you have the time, but you don’t think you have the

space.Not to worry – Wendy Weiner (AKA The Frontyard

Farmer) is ready and willing to help.Weiner teaches people how to set up their own vegetable

gardens. She also creates and tends gardens for people whodon’t have the time or skill to do it themselves.

For those with a limited budget or the desire to play in thedirt themselves, she also hires herself out at an hourly rate tohelp such aspiring vegetable gardeners get started.

A believer in Community Supported Agriculture, Weineris passionate about teaching people to grow their own food.“My feeling is, it’s more important to grow food than to growlawns.” She definitely practices what she preaches.

“I’ve been a home organic gardener for many years,” saysWeiner, who lives part of the year in Colorado.

After getting her plants in, Weiner was away from herLittle Silver garden most of last summer. A friend took careof the watering and weeding while she was gone, and when

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Want To Plant A Vegetable

Garden? The Front Yard Farmer will show you how

Story by Eileen Moon ~ Photos by Scott Longfield

34 APRIL 24, 2009

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she returned in the fall, “The garden was cranking,” she said.The garden was still producing well into the fall, when she planted some garlic and other

hardy crops that shot up strongly early in the spring. The front yard of her Rumson Road home contains nine rectangular boxes made of 10x2x8

pieces of lumber. Each box sustains a variety of vegetable plants, including spinach, Swisschard, beets, garlic, lettuce and broccoli, all of them drawing nutrients from the mix oforganic compost and topsoil she filled each box with before planting.

She lined the interior of the boxes with newspaper to kill weeds and grass, and then added soil.

The manure for her gar-den came from a farm inColts Neck. The compostcame from Molzons Nurseryin Lincroft, but the compostwas ac tua l ly mixed a tHolmdel Nurseries, Weinersaid. She also mixes in a spe-cial mushroom compost fromPennsylvania.

This summer, while otherhomeowners are riding theirlawnmowers and trimmingtheir shrubs, Weiner will betending her crops and feast-ing on vegetables fresh fromher garden.

What little mowing sheneeds to do on her lawn shewill do with a manual lawn-mower.

She planted her crops inher front yard because that isthe area of her property thatgets the most sun, she says.She did have a sign reading“Ask Me About My VegetableGarden” and “The Frontyard-Farmer.com” on display inher yard but the signs were inviolation of a borough ordi-nance and had to come down,Weiner says.

Some of her neighbors

have asked her about her garden and at least one person pledged to start a vegetable patch, too.It really isn’t hard, Weiner says.“These raised bed boxes are so easy to grow vegetables in. It’s a good depth for growing

root crops.”A vegetarian, Weiner either eats or gives away everything she grows, This year she plans to

donate some of her produce to Lunch Break, a soup kitchen and food pantry in Red Bank, as aparticipant in the national community garden campaign, “Plant a Row For The Hungry.”

Growing her own produce also inspired Weiner to learn another skill – home canning. “I’vebeen canning for years. I used to enter my stuff in the county fair in Hunterdon County” whenshe lived there, Weiner said.

When she was growing up in Elberon, her mother had a garden, but Weiner didn’t developher own interest in gardening until she was an adult.

Eventually, gardening became not only a hobby for her, but also a profession.“I used to grow herbs for the culinary market, “ she said. “I worked in an herbal manufactur-

ing lab for many years.” She also used her knowledge of herbs to create creams and lotions and teach others how to

do that as well.Weiner spent 12 years as a “maintenance gardener,” tending perennial flower gardens, before

she came up with the idea of teaching people how to grow their own food. She learned the basics of vegetable gardening from friends, but in the end, she learned by

doing.“Plants are your best teachers,” Weiner says.

With a little help, vegetable gardening is something virtually anyone can do – and helpingpeople get started is her business.

She tailors her garden proposals to the wants and needs of her clients. “I’ll set up the gardenfor you. I’ll tend it for six weeks. I’ll come and install it or I could come hold your hand and helpyou look after it.”

When the warm weather starts to wane, Weiner installs cold frames on her boxes that effec-tively extend the growing season. The wooden frames with Plexiglas lids fit right on top of eachbox. “I was picking lettuce out of these boxes in January,” Weiner said.

More information about Weiner and the art of growing a vegetable garden can be found onthe web at www.thefrontyardfarmer.net.

Weiner can be reached by phone at (732) 797-7262 or via email at Wendy@thefrontyard-farmer.net.

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APRIL 24, 2009 35

The Front Yard Farmer (aka Wendy Weiner) shows off some of the vegetables she is growing

in her Little Silver garden.