Some cities just know how to put on a show. Chicago has plantings like this all over town. Each one seems unique, and all are kept looking great.
I attended a talk this morning at The IGC (Independent Garden Centers) Show here in Chicago by Rick Bayless, award-winning chef-restaurateur, cookbook author, and TV personality. What's really cool is he harvests organic herbs, vegetables and other edibles from his home garden and other city gardens for his restaurants, Topolobampo and Frontera Grill. He mentions that just twenty years ago there were no farmers markets in Chicago, so he started growing his own! Now,
any top notch restaurant in the city MUST use fresh vegetables grown locally. Yes, they also grow them on the rooftops of the city.
The edible craze will certainly die down, but it will not go away. It's a great opportunity for those of us who sell gardening. We have waited for years for this kind of opportunity. Food and gardening just go together. Having a representative of the trend like Rick will only encourage people even more to "grow their own".