The panel discussion organized around the newly released book, EDIBLE ESTATES: Attack on the Front Lawn, took place last night at the New York Public Library at 42nd Street. There was a big turn-out for an enjoyable evening. Several movements have been creating a perfect storm for replanting the lawns with vegetable gardens: Slow foods organizations, Loose the Lawn awareness, and the higher and higher costs of groceries due to soaring oil prices. However, Fritz Haeg gives it an artist's spin and lexicon. He referred to these edible lawns as "Poetic Provocations". He said, "When people walk down the sidewalk and see these lawns, they're forced to examine the world we live in."

The front lawn is the sentry, the thing that separates your home from the street, but planted as a vegetable garden it becomes fragile things in a vulnerable space. (somebody's phrase from the panel, not mine). It's like a de facto test of your neighborhood--will your food be stolen, vandalized, or become a focal point, a gathering place for the neighborhood?

One of the panelists, Paul Holdengräber, quite eloquently spoke about how gardening is a system, and like art, many times the beauty is found when the system fails and the unexpected happens. Gardens, with their constant evolutions and many-faceted elements leave lots of room for this.

Much of the discussion also involved the idea of community and public space versus private space. Shamim Momin, a curator at the Whitney Museum, spoke about her experience at the Whitney Altria museum in Midtown and how when things are in a vulnerable, public space, people start to take ownership. (Fritz Haeg is going to be installing an edible estate in front of the main New York Public Library, so this will be tested in this well trafficked place.) Dolores Hayden has written several books about suburbia, and she spoke about suburbs and the American Dream. Most of this panel's discussion really seemed to get at the idea that this 1950's suburban dream has cost us so much in terms of the environment and community that we are in drastic need of re-evaluating the materialism that fuels our society. Vegetables bring us back to a simpler, more sustainable time.

And, as author and academic Frederick Kaufman discussed, in American history, we have always considered gardening virtuous. In the 18th century tending a garden was considered a cure for alcoholism. And Horace Mann wrote: "Horticultural refinement is emblem and augury of all refinement."

Kaufman then suggested we start planting "smokable estates."