Jenn and Andy Sandman’s sustainable front-yard vegetable garden is a welcoming space for neighbors, both human and wild.
by Helen Yoest | photography by Juli Leonard

Raleigh native Jenn Sandman didn’t grow up working in the garden. “My mom grew marigolds every summer, but that’s about it,” she says. But she may have had a dormant green thumb. Her grandfather, who lived in Massachusetts,  had a large vegetable garden, and the rhubarb in particular impressed Sandman: “I didn’t care for the taste, but I remember being very taken by the enormous leaves.”

On the other side of the family, her grandmother in New York had a beautiful yard, too. “She had a goldfish pond surrounded by ferns and stepping stones, and I’ve been obsessed with moving water features since,” says Sandman. “I also remember how she used to dig her bulbs up each year and overwinter them in the garage wrapped in newspaper; I thought that was the most bizarre practice then.”

When they were newly married, Sandman convinced her husband, Andy, that they should have a dedicated vegetable garden in their North Hills backyard. Over 20 years, the two built a family — and a child-friendly, wildlife-friendly garden.

“The garden changed over with the ages and stages of our children. I grew what they liked to eat as toddlers, so cherry tomatoes and dragon carrots featured prominently. Snap peas were always a hit,” she says. “There were also years we tried for the biggest watermelons or pumpkins, just for fun.”
The couple was steadfast in their commitment to sustainable practices as they began their journey.

“We feel that what’s best for the earth and healthiest for humans and wildlife can also be beautiful,” says Sandman. For her and Andy, that meant staying away from pesticides, using Neem oil, soap spray and hand removal for pest control instead, and inspecting their plants weekly to keep on top of things before they became a problem.

They worked to offer undisturbed habitats within their yard and added shallow water features to provide drinking water for wildlife and preening for birds. “We hoped to provide birds, animals and insects with a safe place to live,” she says.

If she found that rabbits, squirrels or birds were eating her harvest, she’d plant extra to make sure there was plenty for everyone. She used arborist wood chips for mulch, which serves as an excellent weed barrier and reduces the need for watering as it also improves soil compaction. It also increases aeration and replaces nutrients in the soil. Stonecrop and creeping phlox served as living mulches and composted food scraps to enrich the vegetable beds.

They learned as they went along, including making mistakes. “I do my research and try things out. It’s not the end of the world if we have some plant losses,” Sandman says.

“As long as you are planting with soil, water and light requirements in mind, it’s worth a shot.”
Over time, Sandman earned the title of Master Gardener, and the garden expanded with their brood. “We raised three boys and maintained a menagerie of dogs, cats, chickens, turtles and fish,” Sandman says. Their garden also included a greenhouse and vegetable garden.

When their children grew up and moved out of the house, the couple was ready to downsize. “It was time to step toward a smaller, more manageable location,” Sandman says.

Since they loved their neighborhood, they looked for a lot to build a home and garden. They moved into this home in December 2021 and started a new garden, building on their decades of experience and continuing their well-honed sustainable practices.

As they began planning the garden, they understood that the sun axis was different from where they sited their garden in their former lot. There, the best sunlight for growing vegetables was in the back yard, but here, the best sun was in the southwest-facing front yard.

They were hesitant to put their vegetable garden front and center, but they met with landscape designer Margot DeBarmore of Miramonte Studios to work up a plan. “Margot convinced us that a front yard vegetable garden could be both functional and beautiful,” says Sandman. “Our goal was to create a garden that would be a just-right fit for us and give back to our neighborhood and all its creatures.”

The overall design of the garden is inspired by Sandman’s grandparents’ New England-style gardens, as well as the historic gardens of Colonial Williamsburg. “A picket fence surrounding a working, organic vegetable garden was essential for me,” says Sandman. With no front lawn, “we hoped to show our neighbors they can grow food instead and still have it look beautiful,” Sandman says.

Emphasizing native plants, their design includes various plants that flower or provide visual interest throughout the year, sharing the joy of the garden with those who walk by. Some of the pollinator-friendly plants include verbena, bee balm, Short’s aster, Carolina phlox and the native azaleas. “We tried to grow purple coneflower, but the rabbits devoured it overnight,” Sandman says.

They’re also mindful of growing host plants like willow oak, black gum, redbud, dogwood and Carolina silverbell to provide food, shelter or a breeding site for animals. “We’ve tried to offer an entire season of nectar for our pollinators and lots of berries and seeds for wildlife,” says Sandman. The neighbors also benefit from more than the aesthetic of the year-round garden. “We grow more vegetables than we can eat, so we constantly share food with both our human neighbors and wildlife,” Sandman says.

To harken back to her grandmother’s garden, the yard incorporates various water features. Lawn is minimized on the property, and the grass is seeded with mini clover to give nitrogen back to the soil and feed pollinators. “The small area of grass and clover in our backyard usually looks like a Disney movie — at any point, you’ll find several bunnies munching and countless birds foraging for insects and worms,” she says. At night, they often see a family of possums troll by on their game cam. “I like to think of them as the nighttime cleanup crew because they are foragers for ticks, kill and eat snakes, and vacuum up dropped vegetables,” laughs Sandman.

Once hesitant about gardening out front — “I’m an introvert who was used to hiding in my yard out back” — Sandman has now embraced working on her high-foot-traffic street. “I will talk to anyone about plants!” she says. “Whenever we’re working in the garden, I get to chat with passersby about growing techniques or what’s in season.”

Sandman grows all sorts of vegetables in her beds. “Fall is the best time to garden. I tend to favor cold-hardy plants, as I like to overwinter vegetables, providing fresh food throughout the winter,” she says. These include many varieties of kale, collards and Swiss chard. “I love their gorgeously vibrant color,” she says.

While her fall garden vegetables are usually selected for longevity instead of visual appeal, “they still look beautiful,” says Sandman. The garden includes cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages and Brussels sprouts, which can thrive until temperatures dip low into the 20s, as well as beets and turnips, which are similarly hardy.

“Carrots are winter rockstars since they are root vegetables, and I swear my spinach is happier when it has a layer of snow on it!” says Sandman. Some of her winter lettuces can handle temperatures in the teens or even high single digits, and her chives, onions and garlic overwinter to single digits easily.

For all of her fall vegetables, Sandman uses several season-extending methods to carry into winter and spring with daily harvests, including using frost cloth to cover the more cold-sensitive plants and adding cedar cold frames to protect more tender fall and winter varieties, like delicate lettuces. “With our climate, my cold frames spend the fall and most of the winter propped open. We just use them for random freezes,” says Sandman. Additionally, most of their bulbs can overwinter in the ground with little effort or risk.

In just three years, their garden has grown enough vegetables and fruits to be generous with their neighbors, human and wild, and attracted a diversity of wildlife. “We recognize whole families of animals, as they all have their territories and habits, including green anoles, Southern leopard frogs, crows and towhee fledges,” says Sandman. “We also have swallowtails, skippers, fritillaries, buckeyes, dragonflies, bees, wasps, plus raccoons, coyotes and deer.”

For Sandman, it’s been validating to see how their garden has become part of the larger story of their environment. “It really is easy to make intentional choices and increase the quality of life for everything we share this land with,” says Sandman.  

One of the first projects in the yard was to install a Little Lending Library. “We wanted to create a welcoming vibe where walkers could grab a book and enjoy some flowers, and their furry friends could have a good sniff and grab a drink at the dog water bowl,” says Sandman.

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.