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Related: About this forumCanadian Couple's Kitchen Garden Targeted By Authorities
Illegal Front Yard Garden: Canadian Couple's Kitchen Garden Targeted By AuthoritiesTake a look at Josée Landry and Michel Beauchamp's gorgeous front yard kitchen garden in Drummondville, Quebec. The cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis, beets, onions, and brussels sprouts and other vegetables grown by the couple helped Beauchamp lose 75 pounds, and Landry 25.
The only problem? It's illegal.
Boing Boing points us to a petition to save the garden, which authorities insist must be removed. The town code states that a vegetable garden can take up 30 percent of a front yard at most, and Landry and Beauchamp's is in violation. They were given two weeks to comply, which means the garden must be drastically scaled back by this Sunday.
The petition reads in part:
Front yard kitchen gardens are not the problem; they're part of the solution to healthier and more sustainable communities. Thanks for helping us to defend them.
CBC News reports that if the couple fails to remove a significant enough portion of their garden, they could expect fines of between $100 and $300 each day. The news site also reveals authorities say neighbors have complained about the garden, but Beauchamp is suspicious:
Beauchamp said no one has complained to him. He said he shares his fresh produce with his neighbours.
"They love it. Everybody is surprised by the kind of taste we can have from fresh vegetables," he said.
The couple said they have no intention of complying with the city's request.
virgogal
(10,178 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)All signs of self-sufficiency and resistance to GMO foods MUST BE CRUSHED!!!
Signed - NWO
beyurslf
(6,755 posts)"garden." If you define garden as the area used for plants, then it is a small area. They may even be able to argue that none of the yard is "garden" since the garden is inside the planters. It is the planters taking up the yard space.
struggle4progress
(118,356 posts)Anne Sutherland, The Gazette : Tuesday, July 24, 2012 10:45 AM
... The couple were supposed to pull the law-breaking rhubarb and other greens by Tuesday.
That deadline has now been moved to Sept. 1, but the battle is not over ...
The couple lives in the former town of St. Charles de Drummond, annexed to Drummondville in 2004.
Whereas the city of Drummondville has passed a grass-only front-lawn bylaw recently, homeowners in the former St. Charles de Drummond have kept the right to plant vegetables and other greenery in their front yards, but only on 70 per cent of the space ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/index.php
So they can have up to 70% veggie patch but they're supposed to have at least 30% grass
mchill
(1,018 posts)DRoseDARs
(6,810 posts)...our accuser (well, says "the witnesses against him" . The police said "neighbors" complained? Bullshit. Prove it.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,343 posts)The "snitch" is the one who sicked the Code Officer on the homeowner. There is no right to face your "snitch" in The US.
Absent any need for a warrant or probable cause, the Code Officer can write you up on what he/she can observe from the street without telling you how he got there.
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)Although the world was hoping for a good US harvest to replenish dangerously low grain stocks, this is no longer on the cards. World carryover stocks of grain will fall further at the end of this crop year, making the food situation even more precarious. Food prices, already elevated, will follow the price of corn upward, quite possibly to record highs.
Not only is the current food situation deteriorating, but so is the global food system itself. We saw early signs of the unraveling in 2008 following an abrupt doubling of world grain prices. As world food prices climbed, exporting countries began restricting grain exports to keep their domestic food prices down. In response, governments of importing countries panicked. Some of them turned to buying or leasing land in other countries on which to produce food for themselves.
Welcome to the new geopolitics of food scarcity. As food supplies tighten, we are moving into a new food era, one in which it is every country for itself.
The world is in serious trouble on the food front. But there is little evidence that political leaders have yet grasped the magnitude of what is happening. The progress in reducing hunger in recent decades has been reversed. Unless we move quickly to adopt new population, energy, and water policies, the goal of eradicating hunger will remain just that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/world-food-crisis-closer?intcmp=122
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)DiverDave
(4,887 posts)What the hell?
A garden?
Just blows my mind.
lib2DaBone
(8,124 posts).. the government agents will be there demanding food.
EnviroBat
(5,290 posts)any day! My wife and I are in the process of planning next years mega-garden to take the majority of our back-yard. These folks just gave me some great ideas! Love the raised beds with the stone walkways! Every time I have to "cut the grass" I feel like a fucking idiot...
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Nice garden
marble falls
(57,257 posts)neighbors