Feel the Beet: Create your edible garden with Heart Beet Gardening

If $3 a lb. for heirloom tomatoes at the farmers market is more than you can afford, why not make it your Earth Day resolution to grow your own veggies? In the latest New York Times Magazine, author of "An Omnivore's Dilemma" Michael Pollan waxes lyrical about growing your own edible garden:

It’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do — to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind.

Feel daunted by the prospect of creating your own edible estate? Then give the girls at Heart Beet Gardening a call. Run by three Marlborough School alumnae -- Megan Bomba, Sara Carnochan, and Kathleen Redmond -- Heart Beet Gardening is a little local company that'll help you set up your own private, organic edible landscape.

According to Megan, the organic gardening biz is booming, especially with the popularity of the local food movement. "People are looking at where they're getting things from," Megan says. "A lot of people are realizing they want their kids to grow up with a home gardening experience, even if they didn't."

I met Megan and Sara (right) at a native-and-edible garden Heart Beet recently set up for Megan's parents (below). This 1,000-square-foot garden was planted just a few weeks ago with mostly native, drought-resistant plants that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Right now, the garden looks rather bare, but according to Megan and Sara, each plant will expand out about a foot, prettying up the landscape. Once the plants are set, very little water or grooming will be needed. After all, these are perennial plants that don't require replanting.

In addition, the garden has an edible component. Three fruit trees -- pomegranate, fig, persimmon -- are each surrounded by a number of herbs and edible plants, including artichokes, lemongrass, fennel, chives, blackberries and grapes. These edible areas will of course require more water and care, but will also produce local, organic food at a very low cost.

Cost to set this up: A little under $5,000, including the recycled concrete walkway. $5 a square foot doesn't sound too bad, considering the fact that the yard will save water while providing food for years to come.

Most of Heart Beet's work, however, isn't large yards but smaller vegetable gardens and edible landscapes. Want Heart Beet to help set up yours? Call them, and you could have your own garden in just a week. The cost for a 100-square-foot garden with a raised bed runs between $1,500 to $2,500 for set-up, depending on the condition of the soil, the type of irrigation system desired, and other factors particular to your garden.

Once you have the garden set up, Heart Beet can help you maintain it for $75 a month, which includes weekly visits to your garden. Of course, a vegetable garden really needs to be looked at more than once a week, and Heart Beet's overall goal is to get more people gardening themselves. Says Megan: "It's not rocket science."

Heart Beet Gardening. (310) 460-9365.

Earlier: Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, Apartment gardens and auto sprinklers

Top photo courtesy of Heart Beet Gardening; other photos by Siel