QuickTake:
Jacob Bernstein grows 25 citrus varieties, pomegranates, olives and other crops on his south Eugene city lot, challenging the norms of Northwest gardening. “I’m a plant freak,” he says.
In a quiet neighborhood in south Eugene, what started as a modest vegetable garden has turned into a botanical idyll. Jacob Bernstein’s property is home to many plants that conventional wisdom says can’t be grown in western Oregon.
Throughout Bernstein’s corner yard, almost every patch of dirt is covered with plants.
Olive trees grow beside towering sunflowers, intermingled with pomegranates, Asian pears and sea berries from northern Russia.
Jujube trees, which originated in southwest Asia; pawpaws, a tropical-tasting fruit more commonly associated with the eastern United States; and pineapple guava, native to South America, are all thriving — despite Eugene’s rain and mild temperatures.
“I’m a plant freak,” Bernstein said. “The world is crazy, so what do you do with your time? Plants were a great way to have my kids in the yard, getting their hands in the dirt and then we got to eat the foods.”
As his kids grew up, gardening remained a constant. Now, neighbors regularly stop by his yard to admire the garden and sample its unusual fruits. Bernstein said his neighbors know they are welcome to pick and snack as they walk by. (While Bernstein is happy to share with his immediate neighbors, he doesn’t welcome people he doesn’t know walking through his yard in search of free pickings.)
“It’s fun to share these experiences with people who have never seen a pawpaw or tasted fresh jujubes,” he said.
He invites people over for educational purposes, too, sharing information about how urban dwellers can produce significant amounts of nutritious food in a small space.
Weeds and crops together
Bernstein’s one-fifth-acre space looks nothing like a traditional landscaped garden with manicured beds. There’s no lawn. Tall fruit trees form a canopy overhead, while smaller fruit trees and large shrubs thrive in the understory.
A “food forest” is the term given to a garden like this, which mimics the structure and function of a natural forest ecosystem, with a variety of food-producing plants growing in different habitat zones.
Berry bushes and herbs grow at shoulder height, and ground-covering edible plants grow along the forest “floor.” Vines bearing squash, pumpkins and melons climb up trellises. Patches of self-seeding vegetables and herbs are scattered throughout. Pollinators flit from plant to plant.
Bernstein makes his own walking paths through whichever part of the yard is more open, creating informal trails that shift as the plants grow throughout the season. Rather than maintaining tidy beds, Bernstein intermingles plants. He encourages what many people would consider weeds to flourish alongside his crops, creating an ecosystem that he believes supports overall soil health and makes all of the plants healthier.
“When you have diverse plant communities, they’re stronger,” Bernstein said. “The plants and their root networks share nutrients, and they communicate. This makes them more resilient and productive.”
To most eyes, the yard would appear “messy,” but once the plants growing here reveal themselves, an overall impression of abundance and biodiversity takes shape.
Most of the neighbors approve, Bernstein said. But he has heard from some who wish he had a more traditional-looking yard.
“Most people love it,” he said. “Some people see this as a mess. I think everybody right now is OK with it.”
Catalyzed by a health crisis
Bernstein’s commitment to gardening began with a personal health crisis. Diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic inflammatory disease affecting the spine, and other issues such as trigeminal neuralgia, Bernstein sought ways to improve his wellbeing through nutrition. Having grown up with parents who were physicians who emphasized homemade meals and nutritious ingredients, he wanted to provide the same quality food for himself and his children.
“I grew up with better food, and I could tell the difference,” Bernstein said.
Bernstein developed cultivation skills within Eugene’s cannabis community, then applied those advanced growing techniques to food production. The garden’s transformation accelerated in 2015 when Bernstein discovered Full On, a plant supplement developed by his close friend Rob Christiansen. Christiansen died of cancer in April 2023, and Bernstein took over the Full On business, continuing to develop the product.
He noticed his yard plants, even those not typically hardy in the area, were thriving with the improved nutrition and vigor from the soil adjustments. For example, he said his five-year-old pineapple guava, which had barely flowered before, started producing fruit the following year.
Bernstein’s garden challenges common assumptions about climate zones and suitable crops for the Pacific Northwest. With hoophouse protection, he is successfully cultivating 25 citrus varieties, including yuzu, mandarin, lemon, lime and orange. Five pomegranate trees are producing fruit despite Eugene’s cool climate. Twelve olive trees are thriving. Bernstein snacks on aronia berries, which have more antioxidants than blueberries.
“People think pomegranates only grow in warm areas, but they originally came from cold mountainsides in northern Turkey,” Bernstein said. “Pomegranates can grow well here, just not the variety we’re used to seeing commercially.”
He’s also growing grapes, Scarlet Sentinel apples (a columnar variety), persimmon, Mexican mountain varieties of avocado, potatoes and sweet potatoes, various herbs including clary sage, beans for drying, pears, raspberries, plums, turnips, kiwis, melons, Cinderella pumpkins and giant pumpkins, and a carob tree, among others.
A philosophy of abundance
Bernstein frequently surveys his thriving food forest, enjoying the abundance, knowing he can go into his yard to find fresh vegetables or fruit for dinner. He enjoys watching bees work their way through the flowering crops while his squash and pumpkins get larger with each sunny day.
This year he plans to brine the olives his trees are producing. One of his sons is studying food science at Oregon State University and plans to build a press for future harvests.
Bernstein makes use of the medicinal herbs he grows for tea. He has a freeze-dryer and uses that to make powders of herbs and fruits that he can add to smoothies. He eats as much fresh as possible, freezes what he can and shares widely.
He also tries to let go of the feeling of perfectionist pressure to harvest, preserve and use every single piece of food that his abundant garden produces.
“If I worry about everything, I’d be stressed about prepping and trying to store it all,” he said. “But I can eat fresh and let it drop and go clean up later. I put that stuff into compost bins. It goes back into the garden and starts again.”
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