City Council says no vegetable garden in front yard...cause they can! Or can they?

In what appears to be an increase of municipalities taking a stand on urban farming are demanding no front yard vegetables.  While not one municipality can justify a public health concern or public safety concern and seem to simply be banning the practice, just because.  Just because some officials have said "we want front yards to be standards".  Cookie cutter yards but yet in one municipality in Florida they allow yard gnomes, plastic flamingos and fruit and nut trees.  Not everyone there has one or all of those items.

In Oak Park, Michigan, a cash strapped suburb of Detroit, the village is willing to press charges, go to trial because one home owner wanted to make best use of her front yard after a sewer repair.

Don't think our fair city is not among those who escape the scrutiny.  Rumblings have been going on for the past four years to ban, curb planting, non ornamental plantings from front yards and even set a ban on our beloved chicken raising, something a lot of Troy residents value highly.

Home owner association are notorious for dictating how one should display their front yard or what is an allowable activity on your own property.  In two recent cases the HOA's have gone as far as foreclosing on a home owner who had "ornamental" hot peppers in their front yard and refused to remove them and the other was for a home owner who turned a 25x100 side lot into a vegetable garden that was visible from the road, a clause in the HOA's agreement.  I will post up the links to these cases shortly.

Personally I see this as a blatant invasion of Constitutional Rights, and when we are all dealing with income shortages, concerns over quality of food and even availability of quality foods, growing should be an option for every American as it was during WWI and WWII, oh yeah has everyone forgotten about that.  Read some of the articles below, I think you will see the ridiculousness of our governments and how they overstep their bounds, without reason.

Woman Faces Jail Time For Growing Vegetable Garden in Her Own Front Lawn

Oak Park, MI
Julie Bass faces the prospect of going to jail for what she's growing in her front yard.

The illegal growth is tomatoes. And zucchinis, peppers and other edible and what normally would be legal plants.

The officials in Bass' hometown of Oak Park, Mich., have charged her with growing "vegetable garden in front yard space." If convicted, she could spend up to 93 days in jail.

Bass said that the criminal charge "blew my mind." "Sometimes we laugh because it seems so silly and sometimes we cry because it's so pathetic. A lot of times it does not seem real," she told ABCNews.com.

Bass has insisted on a jury trial and a pre-trial hearing is set for July 26. If the case goes to court Bass' attorney Solomon Radner does not believe that a jury will convict his client of a crime.

"Michelle Obama plants vegetables on White House front lawn. I don't think the jury is going to think that it's suitable for the White House, but it's not suitable for Oak Park," said Radner.

The first lady's office, which is encouraging growing fresh vegetables to help fight childhood obesity, declined to comment on the Oak Park vegetable case.

Bass got the idea to plant a garden in front yard after it was torn up over a busted sewage pipe.

"There were piles of dirt outside and we knew we had to do something," Bass said. "We looked into putting in sod but it was shockingly expensive, so we starting looking into other books to do something a little more cost effective. We found pictures in a bunch of different library books of garden beds. It was perfect and we had a blank canvas."

But Oak Park, MI official say front yard vegetable garden is a crime: Read More

Miami Shores, Fl -

For 17 years, Hermine Ricketts and her husband Tom Carroll used their front yard to grow food for their own personal consumption.  And for 17 years, nobody had a problem with it . . . until now.  In May 2013, the village of Miami Shores, Fla., amended its zoning ordinances to explicitly prohibit front-yard vegetable gardens.  Only vegetables are banned—trees, fruit and garden gnomes are just fine.

A few days later, the Village’s code enforcement department served Hermine and Tom with a notice informing them they were in violation of the front-yard vegetable ban.  The department threatened them with fines of $50 per day if they did not destroy their beautiful garden.  Unable to bear the cost of such hefty fines, Hermine and Tom had no option but to surrender to the government’s demands and uproot the garden.

The battle, however, is far from over.  Hermine and Tom are part of a nationwide movement of small-scale food producers and consumers who are tired of the government making their food choices for them—of government dictating what foods they can grow, raise and eat.  On November 19, 2013, they joined with the Institute for Justice to challenge Miami Shores’ senseless front-yard vegetable garden ban.  Their case aims to vindicate the right of all Americans to peacefully use their own property to support their own families.

Hermine and Tom’s fundamental right to put their property to peaceful, productive use is guaranteed by the Florida Constitution’s Basic Rights Clause, which protects the right of all Floridians “to acquire, possess, and protect property.”[13]  The Florida Supreme Court has held that under any “common sense reading” of the clause, “the phrase ‘acquire, possess, and protect property’ . . . includes the incidents of property ownership:  the ‘[c]ollection of rights to use and enjoy property.’”[14]  Any such collection of rights naturally includes the right to use property to provide for the basic necessities of life.  Indeed, the right to procure and consume nutritious food has been considered part and parcel of the celebrated American “‘right to pursue one’s happiness.’”[15]
Hermine and Tom’s right to maintain their garden enjoys protection in another provision of the Florida Constitution, as well—one intended to protect citizens against arbitrary intrusions by the government into private matters.   Florida is one of only a handful of states to explicitly protect the right of privacy in its constitution.[16]  In 1980, the state amended its constitution to provide that “[e]very natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life.”[17]  While Florida’s Supreme Court is yet to squarely address the issue, other courts interpreting similar privacy clauses have held they protect the right to engage in harmless activities in one’s own home, including consuming the foods of one’s choice.[18]

Another case in Orlando Fl.  A battle in the Front Yard.  

JASON HELVENSTON was at work on his second crop, spreading compost to fertilize the carrots, bok choy, kale and dozens of other vegetables he grows organically on his property in Orlando, Fla., when the trouble began.

Mr. Helvenston spent last Super Bowl Sunday planting the garden outside his 1940s cottage, in a neighborhood of modest houses close to downtown. Orlando’s growing season is nearly year-round, and Mr. Helvenston, a self-employed sustainability consultant for the building trade, said he saw the garden as “a budget thing” — a money-saving supplement to the chicken coop he and his wife, Jennifer, installed a few months later behind their house.

Since his backyard doesn't get much sun, Mr. Helvenston ripped out the lawn in his front yard and put the 25-by-25-foot, micro-irrigated plot there. The unorthodox landscaping went largely unnoticed for months, perhaps because he lives on a dead-end street next to Interstate 4.

Then, in September, Pedro Padin, who lives in Puerto Rico but owns the rental property next door, visited with his wife and cast a displeasing eye on his neighbor’s front yard. “All the houses are pretty much kept neat,” Mr. Padin said, “but his house looks like a farm.”

Mr. Padin contacted the city, which cited the Helvenstons for violating section 60.207 of Orlando’s Land Development Code (failure to maintain ground cover on property) and set a deadline of Nov. 7 to comply.

Read on for more here - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/garden/gardeners-fight-with-neighbors-and-city-hall-over-their-lawns.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Des Moines Considers a home garden ban from 2012

The Des Moines Register did not include the lawn-loving resident’s name in their Feb. 7 report, nor has the Des Moines City Council made any decisions on whether or not a ban should be imposed on front yard gardens. The Council is expected to consider the issue in coming weeks.

However, some Council members, such as Kevin Trevillyan, are reluctant to establish a ban on front yard food production because they view the move as limiting homeowners’ property rights. Trevillyan told the Register, “I struggle with where do you draw the line on property owner rights that say here’s what you can and can’t do on your own property?”

This isn’t the first time front yard gardening in Des Moines has come under scrutiny — last fall, a City code enforcement subcommittee drafted an ordinance to ban front yard fruit and vegetable production after a different resident found these plants to be visually unappealing. Growing corn in front yards was at the center of this particular debate. Mayor Steve Gaer recommended bringing the ordinance to a meeting so all Council members could weigh in.

Garden advocates counter that front yard food production is often necessary when backyards are shaded by homes and trees, which can often be the case in older, established neighborhoods such as exist in West Des Moines. Additionally, they argue that lettuces, pea trellises and flowering vegetable plants are indeed as appealing to look at as approved ornamental lawn plants.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/illegal-front-yard-vegetable-gardens-zb01302zrob.aspx#ixzz3Gt0BQChq

FINDING AND KEEPING YOUR CSA MEMBERS

You might have heard the term CSA, but what does that have to do with farming? Well everything for the small farm. CSA, community supported agriculture, is in a sense a buy in for residents to assure good quality, locally grown and easily accessible fruits, vegetables, eggs or even fish. But from the farmers view it is an unnerving prospect because every year you can loose as much as 55% of their

Shareholder bags ready to be picked up.
Photo by Carla Snyder

shareholders. That is a large chunk of a business to loose. You might be wondering who are the shareholders? Shareholders are those in the community that purchase that small farm's, urban farm's product. How can a farm survive if you have to spend your off season planning how to recoup that lost business when you should be planning for your first plantings. Read on - this little article from the Cornell Small Farms Program:

http://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2014/10/06/finding-and-keeping-your-csa-members/

Tempura Japanese Maple Leaves Recipe!

Was having a joking conversation with someone over one of my other (ad)ventures, Salvage and Deconstruction and they sent me this link for fried maple leaves as a jest to re-purpose all the falling maple leaves this fall...then surprisingly enough I found this recipe for Tempura Japanese Red Maple Leaves.

1. Clean Japanese red maple leaves with a wet towel
2. Make tempura batter:
2.1. Beat 1 egg in a bowl
2.2. Add 1 cup ice water
2.3. Add 1 cup sifted all purpose flour
2.4. Mix Lightly (Be careful not to over mix)
3. Heat vegetable oil in a deep pan to 350 F degrees
4. Lightly dip one side of a Japanese maple leaf in the batter
5. Immediately fry them until brown
6. Drain tempura on a rack
7. Enjoy

Some great photos of the treats:
Fried Japanese Maple Leaves

No help for farmers, but a boom to farmers markets

Here we are looking at the upcoming signing of the farm bill and it's focus on Food Hubs....that meaning Farmers Markets. While the markets are a huge resource in getting organic and what some deem as local grown it does not address the real sources that need development, small local farms and urban growing opportunities.

Lets put it this way, the cost for a small farm to get product to these farmers markets often exceeds what they make on a typical Saturday or weekend. If small farms were set up in urban areas then transportation costs would be negated because of close proximity to those markets. Not only would it reduce overhead for the farms, it potentially would open up job opportunities since many small farms do hire anywhere from 5 to 20 people to work the facility. They also could create educational and entrepreneurial opportunities in creating actual working urban farms on vacant city lots, increasing the tax base for municipalities for lots that currently sit dormant and unproductive.

Current questions are being raised in the City of Troy.  A small post industrial city in eastern NY, on the shores of the Hudson River.  The local farmers market is poised to receive a financial boost with a new development that would present them a permanent home in the City. Kirchhoff Properties has applied for a grant to award the farmers market a permanent home with this new development, that is already shrouded it nondescript designs, salesman double talk and public promises of good use of a public space for private development.  According to the farm bill Kirchhoff potentially could apply for upwards of $25 million in financial rewards from the USDA, because they would have provided subsidies to the current farmers market, but none of that money from the USDA, goes directly to the farmers market.  Again we look at that city and of the 80 something properties for sale by the city more than 75% of those are vacant lots.  Wasted opportunities.

U.S.D.A. to Start Program to Support Local and Organic Farming?