I like the idea of growing food, I’ve done herbs for the last few years and I did tomatoes when we live in Bayonne, the only thing that makes me hesitate here are the critters.
I grew up in NYC and have never lived in the suburbs before now. (Hubby grew up on Long Island, but pretty close to the city.)
To me, this is almost like a wilderness. We’ve actually had deer in sight of our backyard and we’ve got possums and racoons and creatures like that.
And, our soil is dreadful, it’s pretty much toxic it seems.
Hubby is saying that after the house is lifted he wants to put in sort of huge planters, so I think we could do veggies and stuff like that.
I love the idea of fruit trees. I’ve never wanted to be a farmer, but I was always open to the idea of an orchard!
Our little ranch house is going to be about 5 feet up in the air, so we are going to have to re-do the whole landscape.
Critters can be dealt with. Since you can’t really hunt the deer you will probably just have to put up barriers of some sort. We use nets (Jungs) to keep birds off the berries. Sluggo takes care of the slugs. Check to see if your township has or uses the haveaheart traps for the smaller critters. If you’ve got an animal control department they might be useful.
My biggest problems are deer and bunnies. And we hunt deer down here. They breed kind of like the bunnies though. This year we’ll put a fence around both gardens. Last year the deer ate all my shell beans. Bunnies ate a few of my peppers. Gardening is a risk.
You can have your soil tested perhaps. Raised beds and large containers might be an idea too.
I’m jealous of you actually. Your climate is much more conducive to great fruit and berry growing than ours. We can’t grow much of anything in comparison. There are dwarf zucchinis, squash, peppers, eggplants, okra, bush melons and so forth that you could really stick here and there in full sun. The dwarf bush beans can be attractive if put in a row in a flower bed. And if you plant flowers there too, no one will know those are beans. I put low growing stuff like strawberries, oregano and dwarf basils here and there as well. And if you make the raised beds out of landscaping stones instead of the wooden planks everyone else uses they will be even less likely to seem like a ‘garden’ in the front yard.
If you’re that close to the shore you can likely grow winter season veggies most of the winter as well with a little protection if things get below 20ish. This is a great link with temperature limits for various winter growing stuff and some tips for winter gardens:
http://www.southernexposure.com/southern-exposures-fallwinter-gardening-guide-ezp-38.html
Ahem! You live in the “Garden State” LOL. When my daughter lived in Mahwah, there were still working farms nearby.
If you can see deer, start planning on fencing. The deer will eat everything.