Summer 2009

Garden Spot: Path to Freedom, Pasadena, California

Owners: Jules, Anais, Justin, and Jordanne Dervaes

Urban farming: Shortly after purchasing his 1,500-square-foot bungalow on a city lot near downtown Pasadena, beekeeper and leathermaker Jules Dervaes had a vision of turning his yard into an urban farm that could feed his family. Undaunted by the fact that he only owned a fifth of an acre, Dervaes and his children ripped up the front lawn and planted their first plot–an herb garden. “Herbs offer such nice shapes and sizes, making good decorations for the front yard,” he explains. As the years progressed, a series of vegetable gardens joined the herbs, until every square foot of the Dervaes’ yard was covered in edible plants. Twenty years later, the urban farm houses roughly 350 plants and yields more than 6,000 pounds of organic produce each year, supplying plenty of food to feed the vegetarian family. It also supplies local restaurants with farm-fresh veggies and herbs, with profits going to help fund the solar panels and biodiesel processors that make the homestead even more self-sustainable.

Enduring herbs: Dervaes jokes about his less-than-green thumb when it came to sowing his first seeds. That’s why he loves herbs. “Herbs are always a good choice because they’re so hard to kill,” he says. The family devotes about a quarter of the front yard to 27 different types–everything from aloe to yarrow. Beyond standard herbs like sage and echinacea, the Dervaes family also cultivates angelica, blue basil, lion’s tale, moujean tea, rumex, and stevia. Local restaurants buy the herbs as garnishes or for unusual tabletop bouquets, and the Dervaes daughters make herbal hair rinses and soaps.

Sowing the wealth: In 2001, Dervaes launched www.pathtofreedom.com, which offers would-be urban farmers advice, classes, and films about how to turn their city lots into city plots. And last summer, the family debuted www.FreedomGardens.org, an online social networking site that allows urban farmers to find out who’s gardening in their area and share tips. More than 2,300 backyard gardeners have joined so far, from as far away as Zimbabwe and Senegal.

[Photo Inset] The Dervaes’ latest website, www.FreedomSeeds.org, offers heirloom seeds that the family has purchased from seed companies and repackaged under the Freedom Seeds name. As seeds become increasingly hybridized and genetically modified, this helps keep open-pollinated varieties from disappearing.

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