It’s kind of hard to explain how my front yard is–the slope from the sidewalk up to the flat part of the yard that’s in front of the house is very steep–at least 45 degrees. The level of the flat part is at least 8 feet above where the sidewalk is. You’d have to climb the stairs to get up to where the tomatoes are going to be. I doubt anyone would do that–it would have to be a determined tomato theif!
My daughter got one tomato plant from school.
We planted it next to the garage, and we’ve got about 18-20 tomatoes on that sucker. I’m waiting for the green ones to get greener before I pick them for Fried Green Tomatoes.
Tell your neighbor to get a life. We planted tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce one year at the side of our house. I didn’t have to buy salad stuff all summer.
And it was fun when the cantaloupe vines sneaked out through the chicken wire and we had cantaloupes ripening in the front yard. Oh, were those things juicy and sweet!
I’m going to have to plant another garden.
If you use the Big A** Pots, use mulch instead of dirt. That way the pots will be lighter for you to drag them around.
I grow vegetables in the back simply so passers-by can’t swipe them. I had this happen too much in the past (when I lived in a house that was closer to the sidewalk than my current place) that I stick to it now.
OK, coming in kinda late. Yes, tomatoes in the front yard are tacky unless done the correct way. The tomatoes or other vegetables must NOT be the focus in the front yard. They must be planted where they are not seen immediately from the street.
Growing vegetables in one’s front yard is looked at as a “white trash” thing, gentile Southern type people just do not do it.
However, if you surround your tomatoes with flowers, and have the requisite azalea or six in your yard, you will be okay.
Sorry, but I too was raised on the “Big Unspoken Southern Belle’s Rulebook”. Of course if you are up North, do any little ol’ thang you want with your yard. We think you are weird anyway.
What the heck is an HOA?
Oh, and grow the tomatoes any damn place you want. and bring me some when I’m in NYC this fall. 
Personally, I refuse to grow anything that’s not edible.
Well, having seen your front and back yards, I vote front yard for the tomatoes. I mean, where would you put your cool hammock if you put tomatoes back there? Where would Arthur play? Not in the front yard–he’d roll down the hill . . . wait, he’d probably like that in a few years.
I think your only concern would be that the pizza place across the street might raid your garden if their supplies are getting low.
By the way, I wave everytime I drive past your house to pick up Aaron at daycare. How’s it going?
Not to worry. The Sorrento’s folks have a HUGE tomato garden in their side yard–if you head down Central about 1/4 mile, it’s on the right. But they’re welcome to any tomatoes they want. They’ve certainly been generous with us.
It’s going fine, btw. We’ve had a rough few months, but things are looking up. Could we arrange a play date for the A-Men? We’re sprucing up the back yard, and we don’t allow Spot the Wonderpup to do his business there anymore, so it’s getting nice back there. I’m not supposed to know about this, but Arthur’s getting a kiddie pool for his birthday! Well, you have my email and my number…
Barbarian: An HOA is a homeowners association. I think they’re the ones that tell you what you can and can’t do to your house—not like zoning, but more like making rules like “you can’t grow tomatoes in your front yard.” Did you ever see that X-Files episode?
Lyllyan: How can you think I’m weird. I’m a Kappa! 
p.s. Is it okay to have seven azaleas? We put them in last week.
Greenbean- I say grow them. Nobody can see them from the street unless they are on/near the sloped part, so I say, go for it! I figure if you keep them nice and neat, nobody will mind… If they do, throw some tomatoes at them!
Well, I’m growing tomatoes in my kitchen right now. I started them from seed and intended to plant them in containers, but since it’s May 8 and still snowing! , I just planted them in their containers and plunked 'em in the Bay window part of the kitchen. I have dozens of wee little pea sized cherry tomatoes on the plants, and I think that they’re gorgeous.
I’m doing the container garden thing this year, and in an effort to keep down the tackiness, I’m keeping all of the containers similar (Terra Cotta). Now all of the lush green leaves are filling in, with little bits of terra cotta colour poking through. I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with myself, as this is the first gardening that I’ve ever done (and all from seed, no less!)
So, I say, you betcha, bring on the tomato plants. And if you have any vertical surfaces that need covering, try scarlett runner beans. Lovely red flowers, edible string beans, easy to grow. You can’t go wrong!
If you have sun in the front yard that may be the only place you can put them.
Be sure to plant some every week. This way they ripen all at the same time- when you are on vacation.
Big Boy or Cherries?
Big Boy.
Wonko: Now that’s a funny image. I can just see myself lurking behind the lavender pelting pedestrians with rotten tomatoes. What fun!
Having grown up in an HOA-happy development which controlled not only our front yard, but the back yard, the garage, and the entire exterior of our house…
Grow the effing tomatoes.
The idea that some green-growies are superior to others is just offensive. I’d say that what matters is that they’re cared for. And having been to your house, I’d guess that not many casual passersby are going to be able to see them anyway!
What I did was fill 1/3 the Big A** Pots with packing peanuts and then topped with amended fluffy soil and finally a layer of mulch.
Not quite - currently living in the greater Houston, TX metro area; born and bred in the heart of the deep South, Columbus, MS, and partly raised by an Old New Orleans belle of a grandmother in an antebellum home. Gardenias and magnolias and old, old silver - the whole nine yards. The front yard was azaleas and other flowers; the tomatoes (oh, the tomatoes) were in the back. As opposed to my mother, who had a proper fenced-in garden on her forty acres - no messing about with front vs. back yards for her. But she’s a bluestocking, not a Belle. (I’m a halfbreed - drives both of 'em nuts.)
Well, I mean, really. What would your guests think? And they’d clash with the devilled eggs, all pale and mealy like that. And it would be truly tacky to serve something that you couldn’t bring out your devilled egg plate with. 
A friend did tell my lovely Wife upon her arrival from (shudder) New Hampshire that we were Living In Sin because she did not have a deviled egg plate.
Ah, yes, the Primer. A good start, that. It’ll at least explain the horoscope of Southern silver patterns, which is something that otherwise seems to have to have been bred into one. Another example of my halfbreedness, by the way - I have a Proper Reed-and-Barton pattern, but it’s not one of the Big 12, which irked my Belle grandmother something fierce. Fortunately, it doesn’t clash with her Francis I - it’s just a lot simpler.
It’s rather fun to read the Primer and then follow it with one of the Sweet Potato Queens’ books.
Uh - topic, topic - it does look a little less startling if the tomatoes aren’t the only veggies growing out there. Also, plant big bunches of basil around them - the tomatoes love them, and in late summer you can pick a tomato and a handful of basil, rinse them off under the sink, chop 'em up with the same knife, crumble a little feta over the top and bingo! Instant salad to die for. Between the tomato juiciness and the feta saltiness, needs no dressing, although a spash of cheap balsamic vinegar over the top certainly doesn’t hurt.
(Darn, it’s too late to plant container tomatoes here. 
)
Okay, an update:
The tomatoes are in. I built a bamboo trellis thingie for them. I wanted to put in the kind of trellis described in the book Square Foot Gardening, but my husband nixed that idea because he said it would be too ugly. But the bamboo should work, though it isn’t as tall as I would have liked.
I’ll report back if I get any outraged anonymous mail telling me I’m tacky.
Tell them that tomatoe plants repel the mosquitoes that caryy West Nile virus.
Whoever it was that wanted strawberries…
Terra cotta strawberry pots. The tall ones with the little open pockets all the way 'round the sides? Grow veritcally, not horizontally and you have room for lots of things.
I last planted strawberries 10 years ago, and STILL have 3 pints jars of preserves left.
Speakin’ of which, does anybody have a recipe that I can use up some orange marmalade with? I can’t eat it anymore, and it’s really good (Plaquemines Parish oranges from Louisiana, homemade and delicious, but not on my can-do list because of the rind involved) but I need to put it into baked goods or something.