Florida Couple Forced to Dig Up 17-Year Old Organic Garden

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/florida-couple-forced-dig-17-year-old-organic-garden-1387899877

When we’ve lost the right to grow our own food, we’ve truly become subjects of the state. Lately it seems we’ve been hearing of more and more people being forced to dismantle their vegetable gardens in order to appease city ordinances or homeowner’s association rules. These same policies don’t ban things like pesticides, Christmas lights, or tacky lawn art—just edible landscaping. The most recent case comes to us from Florida, where a couple was forced to dig up a 17-year old organic garden.

Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll have gardened in their front yard for 17 years. Their back yard doesn’t receive enough sunlight. But recently, their community in Miami Shores decided to make such front yard gardens off-limits. That new rule was enacted in May and the couple had until August to remove their vegetables or face fines. Other towns threaten with jail time for growing produce in the front yard.

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. That's just stupid and ornery.

[darkangel218]

3. The ornery cat sayz you cant use that word

[url=http://postimage.org/][img][/img][/url]

[darkangel218]

2. Miami Shores sucks.

So glad I don't live in Miami anymore.

[kcr]

4. That garden is gorgeous

Not that I support such rules, but I get that the reason behind them is they don't want junkie, weedy looking gardens in people's front lawns lowering the property values. But what a shame to dig up that beautiful garden and replace it with a boring old lawn.

[Lucinda]

5. Stories like this make me cranky.

What a shame to have to give up their only usable edible gardening space.

[DrDan]

6. I live in Florida - and have gardened in my front yard since purchasing our current house in 2005

no problems

the issue here lies with Miami Shores - not Florida in general

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. Interesting TED Talk video linked in that article. Video herein;

#t=309

[Mopar151]

8. Typical complaint of xenophobics

I heard a whole pile of spew and bile one lunchtime - and decided that both of my Yankee grandmothers hadda be Hmong double agents.

[freshwest]

9. The 'subjects of the state' charge is untrue. They are 'subjects' of their neighbors, period.

If it had been ornamentals arranged that way, I suspect the neighbors would have objected to that too. Because they are conformists and insist everyone agree with them.

I hate how individuals in this country want their outdoor environment to resemble a video game, with poodled trees and nothing but lawns. Thiis particularly galling in the northwest, with its beautiful native plant species.

People clear cut and buy crap from the nursery that's not native. This is an nationwide problem that is part of our country getting everything from fewer and fewer vendors of plants.

I'm not against a well-kept lawn, to have a space friendly to bare feet. But this trend of making everything the same makes me wanna scream:

LEAVE THE PLANTS ALONE!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. You got that right.

A few years ago I got rid of all of my lawn and planted (mostly native) flowers, shrubs, fruit trees and vegetables. My next door neighbors had a fit - when I told the neighbor what I was doing, he said, "No! I LIKE grass!" They have been giving me a hard time ever since, griping that it's "wild" and "untended" (it is neither). If they had bothered to listen to me I could have told them why each plant was there and what it did; why native plants attract pollinators and are hardier and more disease-resistant than non-natives; why a carefully-designed garden is eventually less labor-intensive than a lawn; why a garden benefits the environment in ways a lawn doesn't, etc., etc. But they like the golf-course look, which can be acquired only by using pesticides and herbicides.

I wish they would move away and leave me alone.

Fortunately, at least my city doesn't mind (and actually encourages) what I'm doing.