Modern gardens have the potential to revolutionize the way we feed ourselves, mostly by harkening to times past. For decades now, much of the US and much of the developed world has avoided growing anything productive. Instead, we’ve created more roads, more cities, and ultimately more suburbia full of lawns, golf courses, and grass verges.

However, the times have changed yet again. With the sustainability movement, more and more urbanities and suburbanites are getting into the gardening mix. They are ripping out lawns and planting gardens and food forests instead. They are growing a significant portion of their diet in their own spaces.

One of the best ways to get into this exciting food revolution is to learn from those who’ve gotten the ball rolling, and one of the best ways to do that is by watching YouTube. There are loads of edible landscape tours and hundreds of ideas on how to go about making your space an amazing oasis.

Source: Together We Harvest/YouTube

Together We Harvest is an informative tour of a 20-foot-by-40-foot garden growing a huge amount of vegetables, including lots of potatoes, celery, sweet potatoes, and green beans. There are tomatoes, butternut squash, onions, and cucumbers. There are some great tips about choosing which vegetables and seeds to grow and how to do it. This garden is used to feed a family.

Source: Gardening Australia/YouTube

Gardening Australia, the origin of permaculture, is an awesome source for edible landscape tours. This is a tour of Kat Laver’s small urban garden with a mix of tightly pruned fruit trees as well as rotating vegetable gardens. She even had to deal with contaminated soil before getting going. She has some great ideas for keeping lots of food coming in throughout the year, especially using perennial food sources. Warning: She also has quail which she uses for composting garden scraps and eggs.

Source: Happen Films/YouTube

Happen Films is a great series of videos touring lots of different sites, and this site— Melliodora— is particularly special because it is the home of David Holmgren, one of the founders of permaculture in the 1970s. this tour includes a lot of information about Holmgren’s green home. It has great tips for utilizing nature and gardens to supplement some of our energy needs and minimize upkeep. Animals are also a featured part of this farm, helping to control pests,  clearing fire-prone vegetation, and providing manure, as well as milk (shown briefly in the video) and eggs.

Source: More Than Farmers/YouTube

More Than Farmers gives a tour of their 1/8-acre garden, providing tips for how to grow your own along the way. This small garden—less than most suburban lots—produces fruits, vegetables, and berries to feed a family of six. This tour has some good information about growing crops at the appropriate time and how to combat troublesome insects without using chemicals or even many organic sprays. There is also hand-me-down knowledge about growing things successfully.

Source: Sunshine Farm/YouTube

Sunshine Farm is an interesting vegan homestead with animals in the mix but not to be used as a source of food or killed. The animals, rather, are a part of the garden ecosystem, benefitting from it and well as benefitting it. Being fully domesticated animals, they are treated more like pets. This tour shows a picture of a family and how it functions with its edible landscape. It’s a glimpse of what the home garden lifestyle can be.

Source: Edible Landscaping with Michael Judd/YouTube

Edible Landscaping with Michael Judd delves into the joy that is a permaculture food forest. “It’s not growing food in the forest, but growing food like a forest.” He shows off some of the cool crops and Support plants cultivated in his food forest. Some of the stuff in the forest are hardy kiwis, persimmons, dragon citrus, American pawpaw, and goumi berries. There is also a good rundown of understory, groundcover plants like comfrey, nettles, and mint.

Source: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni/YouTube

The Garden Channel with James Prigioni is a fantastic source of information for growing lots and lots of food at home. He has a diverse food forest and amazing veggie patches that his dog loves as much as him. James is super enthusiastic and shares all sorts of insights he’s gathered from his experience with gardening. He’s a personal favorite and provides a lot of inspiration. The harvest in this video is mouth-watering.

Even advanced gardeners and permaculturalists can get a lot out of watching edible landscape tours and seeing what others have done successfully. Every new idea can help to make your own garden a success all its own.

Related Content:

Easy Ways to Help the Planet:

• Eat Less Meat: Download Food Monster, the largest plant-based Recipe app on the App Store, to help reduce your environmental footprint, save animals and get healthy. You can also buy a hard or soft copy of our favorite vegan cookbooks.
• Adopt-a-Pet: Visit WildWatchers, a watchdog platform specifically designed for animal, earth, and wildlife warriors to actively give back, rescue, and protect animals and the planet.
• Reduce Your Fast Fashion Footprint: Take initiative by standing up against fast fashion Pollution and supporting sustainable and circular brands like Tiny Rescue that raise awareness around important issues through recycled zero-waste clothing designed to be returned and remade repeatedly.
• Support Independent Media: Being publicly funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing high-quality content. Please consider supporting us by donating!
• Sign a Petition: Your voice matters! Help turn petitions into victories by signing the latest list of must-sign petitions to help people, animals, and the planet.
• Stay Informed: Keep up with the latest news and important stories involving animals, the environment, sustainable living, food, health, and human interest topics by subscribing to our newsletter!
• Do What You Can: Reduce waste, plant trees, eat local, travel responsibly, reuse stuff, say no to single-use plastics, recycle, vote smart, switch to cold water laundry, divest from fossil fuels, save water, shop wisely, Donate if you can, grow your food, volunteer, conserve energy, compost, and don’t forget about the microplastics and microbeads lurking in common household and personal care products!