Had to post this link - poor women is facing 93 days in jail for her garden. Granted it's in the front yard, but it's in well maintained raised beds.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/08/michigan-resident-faces-3-days-in-jail-for-vegetable-garden/?test=latestnews
Do any of you garden in your front yards? Do you get any harassment for it?
I don't garden in my front yard because the neighbor kids would probably do something nasty to my stuff, but I have a friend that has her whole yard transformed, no trouble as of yet!
ReplyDeleteI had to post this with my garden meetup group - there's several people that do that here.
I think this woman should go in the dark of night and guerrilla garden some zucchini all over the city building grounds :)
I read this today too. I can't believe it.
ReplyDeleteI have jalapeno peppers among my front flowers. I'd have no problem using my front yard, if it were suitable. It's not, too many trees, too much traffic. They'd steal me blind.
ReplyDeleteI signed the petition. I hope that city planner gets about 10,000 signatures delivered to him...one by one!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/oak-park-hates-veggies/
Absolutely amazing! Boy I wish that I lived in that neighborhood. I would make sure that everyone had some veggies growing in their front yards!
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't grow any veggies in the front of my house. It's mostly shade.
No offense to the fine people in the Detroit area, but don't they have bigger things to worry about? Like unemployment, crime, education, etc.
ReplyDeleteI heard about this too, it is all over the news.
By the time she goes for her hearing, maybe the plants will have grown some.
ReplyDeleteMaking it look like an ornamental potager might make the appearance more pleasing to the eye. I would turn those raw wood box beds into raised berms with little rosemary or germander hedges, plant a dwarf fruit tree or two. Blueberries are as ornamental as azaleas. Instead of fighting a losing battle with city hall over my 'right' to a jalapeno in the front yard I would show how my eggplants were decorative and attractive and my patch of mustards was just too ornamental and my paths were neat and mulched with that free city mulch. I would also try to enlist the backing of some expert on sustainable horticulture or at least a county extension agent.
Of course I do, but only in bits so far. Some day I'm going to put raised beds out there, but only after getting the street tree either thinned or removed. I'm thinking lettuce, kale, broccoli, things like that. No strawberries!
ReplyDeleteOur front yard is all edibles anyhow, so I don't know how I could *not* garden out there. Municipalities are just going to have to catch up with the times.
Being from Michigan , I HAD to comment on this. Jackasses! (The government, not that lady!)
ReplyDeleteLast year my only garden was the rock wall garden which was right along the road. I've never gotten complaints. Compliments on occasion, but no one complains.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that. Are they prosecuting people who don't maintain their front yards at all. Her front yard is neat and orderly.
ReplyDeleteI garden in my backyard but I live on a corner so my backyard butts up into the front yard of the neighbor behind us and is wide open to anyone driving down the side street. We get plenty of people who stop to talk to us about our garden because they find it exciting.
My garden is smack in the middle of my front lawn. Well, now it is mostly garden with not much lawn left. It took me a little while to get up the guts to do it, but we tried to make it look as nice as possible. I no longer care what anyone thinks about it, it is my property and this is rumored to be a 'free country'.
ReplyDelete