This has been very time consuming and stressful for us, to say the very least. It is like the school bully told us he was going to beat the pulp out of us at the end of the school year just so we can worry about it the whole time. Weeks have gone into our defense, organizing the issue and the supporters. All because we needed to grow our own food for health and budget reasons.
Put our time and money aside, how many man hours has the City put in trying to get us to remove our vegetable garden and replace it with ground cover? Now, how many man hours are being used to change a Code that the Mayor already says doesn't prohibit vegetable gardens in the first place? There has to be better ways to utilize tax dollars than harassing tax payers over growing their own food.
Now the City wants us to spend more time, money, and resources on making our Patriot Garden more attractive. We would like to point out that our front yard
vegetable garden is “kept and maintained” to the same levels as any other yard
in the City of Orlando.
The City has indicated it is probably going to require a fence or raised beds for front yard vegetable gardens (not official), so we have started a quote process. The City officials suggested a 4' high picket fence for our front yard vegetable garden. Since it is in the vegetable garden we can not use Pressure or Chemically Treated Woods due to leaching into the soil. Therefore, we must use other alternatives.
Fence Quotes
Fence Outlet - White Vinyl $1493 for solid & $1626 for picket.
Home Depot (cheapest materials only) - White Vinyl $863 for picket.
We cannot afford expensive aesthetic upgrades to our Patriot Garden. We will not be able to comply with Codes based on vanity and conformity.
Our Right to Grow Our Own Food. On Oct. 8, 2012, a notice from the City of Orlando’s Code Enforcement stated that our “Front yard must be restored to its original configuration and ground covers restored.” Our edible garden had to go. Thankfully we have been blessed because our community and the world has come to our side to fight for the Freedom to Grow our Food. Help us to engage the community to plant more edible gardens.
No "truck gardening" huh? I wonder if Truck Farms are allowed... http://www.truckfarm.org/
ReplyDeleteBut in all seriousness, if the "the intent of the code was to prevent nuisance effects of major farming activities from harming the reasonable use and enjoyment of adjacent, non-agricultural property owners." Then I don't see how a front (or back)yard garden would harm neighboring reasonable use or enjoyment. In fact, it seems to me the neighbors aesthetic snobbishness and, quite frankly, ignorance, are at this point harming the gardeners reasonable use and enjoyment of their own property.