After 6-Year Battle, Florida Couple Wins The Right To Plant Veggies In Front Yard.

Homeowners Tom Carroll and Hermine Ricketts held a ceremonial planting of vegetables in their garden on Monday. The Village of Miami Shores had prohibited front-yard gardens, but the Florida Legislature passed a law that assures such gardens' legality.
Wilfredo Lee/AP

Okra. Bell peppers. Cherry tomatoes. Jalapeños and squash.

Those are some of the vegetables that Hermine Ricketts and her husband, Tom Carroll, planted in front of their home in Miami Shores, Fla., on Monday.

That's the day a Florida law went into effect that nullifies local bans on vegetable gardens at residential properties. It was one of those ordinances that had forced the couple to uproot a garden that Ricketts had tended for 17 years.

Ricketts had her vegetable garden in front of her home because that's where the sun is, as NPR's Greg Allen reported in 2013: "[H]er house faces south and her backyard is mostly in the shade. A retired architect, originally from Jamaica, Ricketts says she gardens for the food and for the peace it brings her."

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