Skip to main content

Govt. Busybodies to Homeowners: Tear out your Garden!

I wish my neighbors' yard looked like this instead of the weed-choked dump they've let it turn into:

Jennifer and Jason Helvenston, gardening scofflaws. Photo from the Institute of Justice.

The city of Orlando, Florida ordered the Helvenstons to dig up their front yard and replace it with lawn or face a $500 per day fine. From the Institute for Justice (the same nonprofit organization that's defending blogger Steve Cooksey at diabetes-warrior.net),

Jennifer and Jason Helvenston of Orlando, Fla., take their role as responsible members of society very seriously, by choosing to commit their lives to sustainability: They built their home with naturally sourced materials, harvest eggs from their backyard chickens and grow vegetables in their front yard. Not only does their garden provide them with their own food, but it has become a community attraction where the couple teaches local youth about homegrown vegetables. The Helvenstons embody life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They have found life in the soil and the food they grow for themselves, liberty in their self-sufficiency and happiness in the contributions their garden makes to their community.
But the Orlando City Council—which aspires to be “the greenest city in America”—claimed that the Helvenstons’ harmless, well-tended front yard garden was in non-compliance with the city code, and threatened to fine the couple $500 a day unless they uprooted it and replaced it with lawn. Since the Helvenstons were originally cited, deadline after deadline to uproot their garden were postponed, and the future of the Helvenstons’ front yard, the source of most of their food, has hung in the balance. Undoubtedly, the city was waiting for media attention to abate before it enforced the law.

 The couple's website says,

The U.S. and Florida constitutions protect our property rights from arbitrary invasions.  Insisting that we grow grass instead of a vegetable plant is irrational and beyond the scope of government power.  The city should not only withdraw its demands that we tear up our garden, but amend its zoning code to allow more people to take our lead. Growing a garden is as old as civilization and deeply rooted in the American experience.  During both World Wars, Americans were encouraged to plant their own “Victory Gardens,” which were an economical way to increase the nation’s food supply.  It makes little sense that something that was once  considered a patriotic duty should now be against the law.  The garden ban is especially ironic because Orlando aspires to be the “Greenest City in America.” 
Orlando's proposal for new, less stringent regulations (which would nevertheless force the Helvenstons to tear out much of their garden), is on hold.

Back in February, the city of West Des Moines, Iowa showed more common sense, with some officials saying, basically, such an ordinance would be a waste of time and could violate property rights.


Comments

Suzie_B said…
Don't we Americans just love how government looks after our best interests in the land of the free? And let's not forget our pride in liberty too! Maybe only in Texas? Belief that our voter elected government holds these core values is kind of delusional I'd say.
April 11, 2013
Lori Miller said…
As you know, our federal government nursed along the rising obesity and diabetes with their low-fat dietary recommendations, and now is goading us all to eat more vegetables, while another branch of government wants its citizens to stop planting them in their front yards. One has to wonder how much better off we'd be if government had left people to eat and grow whatever food they wanted.
April 11, 2013
Suzie_B said…
There was a time when "private property" meant something to that effect.
April 11, 2013
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...
24 comments
Read more

Collagen-filled Low Carb Burritos

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these  from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese  with no emulsifiers  Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...
24 comments
Read more

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...
18 comments
Read more

In Defense of Fast Food

Another modern trend - healthy food should be expensive, not nutrients-dense and preferably exotic, or you would be eating like plebs who live on a dollar McD menu. --Galina L. I don't try to jump over seven-foot hurdles, I look for one-foot hurdles I can step over. --Warren Buffett, pleb who eats at McDonald's Despite all the talk about wild-caught v. farmed, grass-fed v. CAFO and the vilification of fast food, a lot of us plebs benefit simply from carbohydrate restriction. But even though diabetes and obesity are rampant, and carb restriction alone would help millions of people, the impression is out there that you need to eat in a very specific way, far beyond just watching the carbs. Following a low-carb diet is already a high hurdle for many people. If some people want or need to raise the bar for themselves, that's fine with me, but there's no need to turn low-carb into a hurdle that a lot of people can't jump over. Organic produce and grass-fed or p...
17 comments
Read more