How to Turn Your Front Yard Into an Urban Farm, Legally

Nathaniel Barrett’s pandemic project has taken over his life. Fortunately for his citrus trees, he knows state law better than the Dallas Code Compliance Office.

By Nathaniel Barrett
D Magazine
March 7, 2024

Excerpt:

I come from a family of fruit growers. My maternal grandfather, a minister raised in Texas but retired in California, kept an extensive garden where he grew guavas, plums, tomatoes, and dozens of other delights. My mother was quick to remind me how, when she was a child, she had to pick 500 weeds in her father’s garden every morning before school, so I should consider myself lucky to merely have to take out the trash. I also have fond memories of secretly picking apples and pears from my father’s small orchard at our country home. He often complained that the squirrels got his fruit no matter how he tried to thwart them, and he eventually gave up on the orchard. The purloined fruit, until it was discontinued, tasted far superior to supermarket produce.

I had the opportunity to continue the fruit-growing tradition of my forefathers when a mulberry tree in our front yard dropped several large limbs on our Old East Dallas house and had to be taken down. Where once nothing but the scrubbiest ground cover would grow in the near-constant shade, I now found myself with 1,500 square feet of sunny, newly reclaimed agricultural land. This being the early days of the pandemic, I had more free time than usual and set about converting our front yard into a full-fledged horticultural operation, tilling the earth and bringing in truckloads of freshly chipped arborist cuttings.

Read the complete article here.