A Regular Middle Class LA Farm

^{Kelly Coyne and Eric Knutzen have an American Gothic moment on their LA farm}

Eric Knutzen and Kelly Coyne’s city farm began its life as a simple kitchen garden. Motivated by an interest in eating fresh and local, Knutzen and Coyne assessed the spare 1,750 square foot backyard of their 1920s Silver Lake bungalow in Los Angeles and saw the possibility of a food forest. To get there, they poured over gardening manuals, learning through trial and error what worked in their Mediterranean climate. Eggplant and broccoli were too fussy. Rosemary thrived. They put in Italian strains like Borlotto beans, purple Sicilian cauliflower, rapini and arugula and in the process rediscovered the good bitterness natural to Italian food. “We’ve lost a whole world of flavors to bland supermarket produce,” Knutzen laments.

Their “compound,” as they wryly refer to it, has since grown to include chickens, greywater irrigation, a home brewing system and a fleet of bikes. Last summer they pushed their homestead’s boundaries even further and planted corn, beans and squash in the parking strip in front of the house — challenging the idea that a front yard requires a lawn. They were worried the neighbors and city would disapprove, but to their surprise and delight, the vegetable patch sparked more curiosity than complaints.

The little patch is also a perfect example of the permaculture they practice, in which planting vegetables beneficial to one another in the same plot increases efficiency and reduces labor. In this case, the beans provide nitrogen to the soil, the corn provides a stalk for the beans to climb and the squash provides mulch, which conserves water and keeps down weeds — the perfect time saver for a duo who jokingly call themselves “lazy urban homesteaders.”

Knutzen advises other aspiring homesteaders to take it slow and to be persistent. The couple have gathered their experiences into a how-to manual, The Urban Homestead (Process Media, June 2008), which touches on vegetable gardening, poultry, DIY cleaning products and beer making — all outlined with a sense of play and fun. “Living sustainably doesn’t have to be heroic or motivated by guilt,” Knutzen says. “You want it to be inspiring. For us, it’s about incorporating things like home growing and riding a bike into a regular middle class life.” Follow their adventures at homegrownevolution.com.