Growing veg in your front garden

[SusieG]

Why the heck not??!! Just go for it, and if it gets vandalised/nicked, you'll know not to bother again.
There's always good and bad wherever you are. Thought we'd be ok here in a small village going on to nowhere, but in our first year here we had our 1,200 litre oil tank (no gas supply) drained and they wrecked it in doing so ...
They were caught in action on a neighbours security camera, but of course the police can't/won't do anything.

Soo, just be prepared and anything that you produce is a massive bonus!

[alldigging]

I grew brussels sprouts in a previous front garden. People used to stop and talk all the time when I was out, asking what was what in the beds.

[Bren In Pots]

Have a look at this site its all about growing in your front garden theres lots of different ideas and photos in their links.
BackToFront

[Penellype]

I have a small area next to my side door that I sometimes use for veg. I've grown the odd tub of potatoes there and some bush tomatoes. The main difficulty is that it is something of a wind tunnel so anything that is not extremely heavy ends up laid flat. I tried courgettes once and they lasted about a week before the leaves were shredded and they succumbed to mildew.

The drive is gravel and there are a few plants growing along the side of the house, which are currently flattened under builders scaffolding (I'm having the wall repointed). I doubt the poor plants will survive, and I might try some small containers along there, but nothing tall because of the wind. I've thought of converting the front lawn into either a greenhouse or raised beds, but I jib for several reasons. I have to leave room for workmen to cut the top of the hedge and I would worry about ladders near a greenhouse, ladder access is a similar issue with raised beds - the available area would be rather narrow if I laid a suitable path alongside the hedge. The drive side of the lawn is far from straight which would look extremely odd with raised beds, and anyway, I like the lawn.

None of the above stops me thinking about the possibilities from time to time though!

[BUFFS]

I have a walled front garden and only a courtyard in the back, and the drive rises as it gets nearer the house, my veg patch, with its raised beds, raspberries, rhubarb and espalier fruit trees, all in an approx. 7ft wide and about 35/40 ft long runs alongside the drive with the front greenhouse level with the house. we fill the "coffin"(6ft x 3ft x 3ft freezer) each year from this patch and as it has been a veg patch since the 1880s and the topsoil is magic and over 3ft deep, with the 2ft raised beds on top I get the very best parsnips the size of which I have never grown before, all we need now is for summer to arrive.....

[Spunky]

This is my front garden excuse the compost

[Chippy Minton]

We usually have a tumbling tom in a hanging basket, a couple of troughs of strawberries and a very healthy postie Don't get any issues because our door is a flight of steps up so the local yoofs can't be bothered (probably famous last words ..... tonight ) . We also have a fig in a south facing corner of the retaining wall which seems quite happy. Don't think the yoofs are into figs either Works for us because someone walks past it each day so we tend to keep up with the watering!

[ESBkevin]

I'd put pretty things that your average moron won't recognise things like chard or asparagus both of which look pretty too.

[Scoot]

I grow everything in the front garden

[Alison]

I'd put pretty things that your average moron won't recognise things like chard or asparagus both of which look pretty too.

OH had to stop me correcting a very annoying woman who was walking round the veggie section at The Eden Project telling her kids the wrong names for everything. Can't remember all of them but she definitely thought that chard was rhubarb. Wouldn't fancy it in a crumble!

[AkionTotocha]

I've thought about putting a few poisonous looking things in the front like goji berries, pink blueberries, and white strawberries in the front - if you know what they are you deserve to scrump them!

[hamamelis]

Even if people don't know what they're doing, you never know; my landlord grows some herbs and spuds in the front garden, and a year or so back, we had an elderly lady helping herself to handfuls of the potato leaves, until I saw her and asked her to stop.

She didn't speak a lot of English, so no clue what she was planning on doing with 'em...

[AkionTotocha]

Even if people don't know what they're doing, you never know; my landlord grows some herbs and spuds in the front garden, and a year or so back, we had an elderly lady helping herself to handfuls of the potato leaves, until I saw her and asked her to stop.

She didn't speak a lot of English, so no clue what she was planning on doing with 'em...

Could have been planning..

...murder!!

Or at least diatary discomfort.

[Containergardener]

Bought our land to build from next door neighbour. Was her garden. The fact she now has identical plants of my front garden and her claiming at one point this is really still her garden(garden stripped and demolished by us) , I don't put anything decent in front incase she nabs herself in

[Philthy]

I've got a bay tree grown from a cutting that I'd really like to put out the front, next to the front door probably. It splits about 2" above soil level, and thus has a dual trunk going up, arrow straight with a 4" gap between the two. The canopy is about 6' up.
Unfortunately my area is prime grazing for pikeys. I suppose I could put a chain or something through the bottom of the pot but nothing will stop the pot contents being lifted in the night. By contrast the local kids are 'generally' not too bad, but then nobody in the road has stuff that would particularly appeal.
A residential road not far from my work which I drive down daily has several fairly large properties on it, two of which are in various stages of garden overhaul. Both have recently planted laurel along the front boundary where it meets the road, and both have had every single newly planted shrub pinched during the night within the past fortnight (about 60 plants in one case)!
Short of putting a fence up while you wait for plants to grow big enough to render their theft too awkward to bother with, there's not a great deal one can do, besides not bother to try and make the front of your property attractive or productive in the first place