A Raised Bed in a City? This Urban Gardener Did It, and So Can You
I usually say it’s more about sun than about space.
By Nicole Clausing
Sunset
March 30, 2022
Excerpt:
Sophie Pennes, of Urban Farms LA, explains how sun is more important than space and how it’s perfectly possible to pull off an edible garden in a city environment.
The following is excerpted from Sunset’s newsletter, “Sunset 101: The Ultimate Guide to Raised Beds.” To find out more about Sunset’s newsletters, click here.
The seeds of Sophie Pennes’ wildly successful career as a Western garden professional were sown in, of all places, New York City. Pennes arrived in the metropolis to study fashion, but quickly found herself unhappy, unfulfilled, and questioning the importance of the work she was doing.
Discouraged, she moved back home to regroup only to find that her parents were going through a minor reckoning of their own. They’d been getting a CSA box, but had lately started wondering if they couldn’t just grow their own produce.
The whole Pennes family hit the garden, and Sophie found herself there for as much as seven hours some days. “It made me happy again,” she remembers. “I felt like I was living healthier. I enjoyed every part of it. My immediate thought was, ‘why don’t I help other people do this?’ Because it brought me a lot of joy.”
For the last five years, Pennes has been bringing gardening to the greater Los Angeles area through her one-woman establishment, Urban Farms LA. We spoke to Pennes about the challenges and joys of raised-bed gardening in a city, and specifically about growing herbs, that most reliable of edible-gardening crops.
