Woman Who Planted Veggie Garden In Front Yard May Face Jail Time

Woman who planted veggie garden in front yard may face jail time
11/07/2011 8:00:00 AM
by Monica Bugajski

A Michigan homeowner is facing a jury trial and potential jail time for planting a vegetable garden. This act is apparently in violation of city code, which dictates that only "suitable materials" be used in all unpaved portions of front yards.

Julie Bass, an Oak Park, Michigan homeowner and mother-of-six, decided to plant a vegetable garden in her front yard so that she could save money by growing her own organic food. She filled five large planter boxes with cabbages, cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs and other edible vegetation.

While many neighbors enjoyed the fruits of her labour, others complained. Seeing how city code requires homeowners to plant shrubbery, grass, ground cover, and "suitable materials" in all unpaved portions of front yards, city code enforcement officials told Mrs. Bass to squash the project or face a ticket.

According to Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski, the word "suitable" means "common," and vegetable gardens in front yards in Mrs. Bass's community are not common, so Mrs. Bass is in violation of the code.

Mrs. Bass now faces a trial by jury and up to 93 days of jail time.

But suitable does not mean common (as stated by Merriam Webster's online dictionary, suitable means "adapted to a use or purpose" and "satisfying propriety").

Vegetables are in fact very suitable to a front yard because they make perfect use of the soil and space. As to whether or not a vegetable garden satisfies propriety - conforming to what is socially acceptable in conduct - this is really a matter of opinion.

Mr. Rulkowski says that what is common in the community is "a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers." His argument is based on his belief that anything veering from this standard is not right, appropriate or fitting for a front yard.

His priority appears to be the preservation of a certain cookie-cutter aesthetic in the neighborhood. But to me, there really isn't much of a visual difference between a raised flowerbed and a vegetable one, but there are some huge practical ones.

Mrs. Bass's code-compliant neighbors will on average use about five gallons of fuel a year per household to run their lawnmowers and trimmers, which each produce as much smog in an hour as an average car does when it drives between 100-200 miles.

An additional five gallons of fuel is consumed in watering their lawns. Water is a precious and undervalued resource in the US, so much so that three times more of it is invested in grass than corn, making lawns the largest irrigated crop in the U.S.

Mrs. Bass's fruitful efforts, on the other hand, produce an environmentally conscious space that positively impacts quality of life by reducing emissions and cutting back on wasteful water consumption, all while growing fresh eats.

Let's consider the fact that with food shortages becoming a looming reality and the price of groceries in stores continually on the rise, Mrs. Bass's garden makes sense not just environmentally but also economically.

Surely, all this would be in line with "propriety" if city official and other opponents to Mrs. Bass were really interested in the greater good of their communities.