Kiss My Backside Alert: City Says You Can’t Have a Garden in Own Yard

By Clash Daily / 9 January 2013 / 21 comments

Screen Shot 2013-01-09 at 9.28.40 AM ORLANDO, Fla. -

A College Park couple’s vegetable garden is on the chopping block again after the city threatened fines if they don’t uproot it by Thursday, according to the Institute for Justice Florida Chapter.

Jason and Jennifer Helvenston are launching “Plant a Seed, Change the Law,” a protest of Orlando’s law, which they say violates their constitutional right to peacefully use their property to grow their own food.
In November, Local 6 broke the story about the controversial garden after the city told the Helvenstons their 25-by-25-foot front yard vegetable garden was not in compliance with the city’s code.

After hundreds of emails supporting the couple flowed in and initially allowing the Helvenstons to keep their garden, saying it will hold off on violations, the city has since asked the couple to uproot the garden and replace it with a lawn or face fines.

“The greatest freedom you can give someone is the freedom to know they will not go hungry,” said Jason Helvenston. “Our Patriot Garden pays for all of its costs in healthy food and lifestyle while having the lowest possible carbon footprint. It supplies valuable food while being attractive. I really do not understand why there is even a discussion. They will take our house before they take our Patriot Garden.”

Read more at clickorlando.com

Check out Doug Giles' new book 'Sandy Hook Massacre'!

« Previous Post

Posting Policy

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse. Read more.

Victoria

It looks bad but it’s their own yard.
ves

I just love it when the “homeowners ass” and BS laws tell you what you can and can’t do with your own property!
I grewup in Houston and we always had a personal garden and it was a lot bigger than this!!
Others need to M.O.B.!!
May not be as pretty as flowers but it has a real purpose and is good for the enviroment!
Not any different than a lot of the really ugly landscaping or lack of landscaping that others have!!
VeeDub57

Welcome to the Socialist/Democrat Amerika version 2013. It’s only going to get worse as long as Socialists/Democrats are in CONTROL. THIS is what they do! Big government that controls every aspect of your life.

The lazy, the shiftless, the dope head/dealers, the crack hoes and the baby daddy’s all control the nation now. THEY are the ones who put obama in the White House…. With a little helpe from spineless Republicans, union thugs, and muslim groups.
Sgt. York

AH yes the great Communist Government is now setting in. I’m 78 and can remember when the Government put posters up foe Victory Gardens. Then they would beg us to grow our one foods,but today its. we now tell you in fact we demand you follow our rules or else. Where has the America I once knew gone?
RedStateKitty

“Looks bad?” Did you look at the neighbors’? It looks much greener. Not traditional, lawn, no. Very few homeowners in an area like this (College Park) do much planting of any type of annuals. They leave the foundation plantings and keep the yard up by mowing (all YEAR ROUND in FL!!).

I grew up in College Park, in a slightly more upscale section. The yard was bigger as was the house. This is hard by I-4! The city should be more worried about the possibility of pollution of their crops by the traffic nearby rather than the “runoff.”

And speaking of “runoff,” dating back more than 40 years, there has been a problem in the Central Florida lakes with over growth of weeds (ie, algae, floating weeks like hyacinths, underwater weeds, etc) that are fed by runoff — but runoff from homeowners trying to get that perfect lawn. These homeowners, have mulched to protect their plantings from heat, weeds and runoff, and to protect their work in creating the valuable black soil (soil in FL, unamended, is grayish due to the sand content). THEY ARE NOT CAUSING THE PROBLEM with runoff. Homeowners who are treating non-productive lawns are the problem (and of course there’s runoff from street pollutants from vehicles).

The city of Orlando has changed much since I grew up there in the 60′s and 70s. Back when, it was a solidly conservative, Republican stronghold. Disney and the attendant growth and infusion of liberals from out of state ruined it. I wouldn’t move back there if you paid me!
armydadtexas

Florida can K.M.A. Folks doing what Americans have done from the beginning of our nation. Rugged individualism. Planting and harvesting their own food and a group of numb nuts from the local Government tell them they can’t. BITE ME. What ever happened to FREEDOM. Our nation has gone psych
- dshevlin
  
  They just do not want you to be self reliant in any shape or form, period. When Hitler was taking down Germany et al, no food gardens were allowed then either. Because in a commie nation you will be required to work for the “state” and what you will receive for that work is not a paycheck but rather a food card for the week to get food. No work, No card, NO food. So you have to work or you do not eat which is why you can not grow your own food because then you would not need to work for a card to get food from the store. BITE ME is correct, but bite me gets you fined $500. a day until you comply. The socialists/commie b-a-s-t-a-r-d-s will also take all farms from farmers, they did that too in Europe. Yes, our nation has gone psycho, they are all on mind manipulating drugs of some kind. It is time to take a stand now America. Educate your foes to HISTORY. It is history that tells the truth. JUST LOOK. Laugh at them. go hysterical with laughter and do not comply. They hate it when you laugh at them but that is what they create, hysterical lunacy any educated open minded person can easily see it, so laugh, laugh, laugh.
http://www.facebook.com/barbjeanpatton Barb Patton

What have we come to when you are not allowed to use your own property for what you want!!!!!!! Yes indeed the Democrats wants to own it all – be boss over it all and God help us take it all away from us. WE THE PEOPLE have no leader and are just swaying in the wind whilst the ayatollah and his thugs cut us off at the knees with their machete of laws, rukles and regulations. I for one am sick of it…….
Noah

Socialist, communist and ungodly “Big Brother” watching. Why are all of these stupid laws being tolerated by AMERICANS? I can understand if you were born in Kenya and your ideology and main goal and philosophy is to make America a third world country by “everybody having the same thing and no more”. The liberals everywhere are on some kind of rampage to totally destroy America and its Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I applaud the Helvenstons and hope hundreds of thousands of other true Americans will come to their side.
Shagnasty1

I begin by saying I don’t like government intrusion. Today we have too much government but some government is necessary. Many civil laws are written because for some reason people don’t seem to have respect for their neighbors so I ask this question: Why don’t they put their garden in their back yard? Also, were these zoning laws put in place after they purchased their property or before? If before then they don’t have a case and they shouldn’t have purchased that property if they didn’t like the rules. I agree we should be able to use our property as we lawfully choose but when people live in close proximity we all need to consider our neighbors. That is why I live in a rural area so I can basically do what I want on my property. Zoning laws are there for a reason. If we are allowed to do whatever we want on our property then what would
stop somebody from starting a junk yard or some other heavy industrial
business next to YOUR house? If you want a vegetable garden have it in your back yard. If you don’t want to comply then don’t complain when your neighbor does something you don’t like on their property.
MARYANN33

Warn Michelle Obama so she can dig up her garden in the backyard of our White House. It is illegal for her to have a garden too…..
MARYANN33

Let’s arrest her for gardening…..maybe that will stick.
WASP

No wonder Disney picked Orlando as Mickey Mouse’s east coast home. Their city gummint is pretty Mickey Mouse.
Charlie

The building official quoted in the full article states that they’re not against gardening, and the “code is unclear.”

Excuse me?? Please…someone tell me this story is a joke. A very bad, over-exaggerated joke.

I wonder if any overripe tomatoes will end up on the city truck being used to harass these people.

Building codes should be minimal, specifying acceptable load ranges, reasonable size of structure relative to lots, etc., and not cover plantings.

This is silly. And silly is probably sad now for being dragged so low as to be counted in with this.
TPM

Perhaps the “key” here is that they planted the garden in their FRONT yard. Tacky …
What next? Work on and store your junk car(s) in your front yard?
If these people “just” wanted a garden, why not put it in their back yard, like 99% of other folks?
Front yard gardens have a negative impact on property values. They make the neighborhood look like Dogpatch USA. Many municipalities and most home owner associations have this regulation. It’s for the protection of property values.
tedthebear

When the bureaucrats pay my mortgage, taxes, upkeep etc. on my property only then do I feel they have any say about what I legally do with it. Other than that if they show up to take out my garden or any other improvements they’ll be lookin’ down the front end of my 870!
gwedem5995

This is one time I agree with the government. I am totally behind gardens in your back yard but not in your front yard.
JDH

Tear out the omatos and plant pot-then the dope heads running the city will not only let you alone-they wil lpropbably give a civic achievement award.
moonwinx

Every Petty Politian in every city and town wants to be like Ovomit. These people are the useful idiots that Ovomit likes. they will suffer in the end but they are too stupid to realize it.
Phil

Agenda 21 and the U.N.
Look into it people and demand your local politicians aign off on thies “NEW WORLD ORDER POLICY”.
Phil

Why can’t disqus ever print what I Type right?
Everytime I use it it makes me look like I can’t spell.
Anyway. We the people should declare the U.N. OUR ENEMY!!
And all three branches of government our “DOMESTIC ENEMY”!!!
Justice Roberts invalidated the supreme court with his findings on MENGELE-CARE!!
Willing consent DENIED!!

The Sandy Hook Massacre

The Sandy Hook Massacre: When Seconds Count, the Police are Minutes Away:

"Doug Giles and his team over at ClashDaily.com cut through the crap to expose what have become modern day human slaughter houses: gun free zones. Their candid arguments about allowing teachers to protect themselves and the students in their care through concealed carry should be taken seriously. As a result maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to save some lives someday rather than call the cops to report the body count." - Katie Pavlich. News Editor,Townhall.com and NYT's Best-selling Author, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up

"There were many lessons to draw from the horrific Newtown, CT school shooting. Unfortunately, most of the media and political Left came up with the wrong ones. But not Doug Giles and his writers over at ClashDaily.com. In the wake of this horror, they offered a robust defense of American citizens' right to bear arms and common sense answers to societal violence. The Sandy Hook Massacre: When Seconds Count, the Police are Minutes Away is a great resource for those interested in this vital, Constitutional issue." - S.E. Cupp, MSNBC Host and The Blaze Contributor