[Community_garden] Sacramento - Veggies in the Front Yard

[Bill Maynard]

Veggie lovers


We are in the final days of the campaign for revising the city code in
sacramento so that vegetable growing can be included in the revised code
that since 1943 only allows turf and low growing ground cover.... We do
have trees and shrubs ..BUT by code they are illegal.. during this
rewrite effort vegetables were singled out to only be allowed to grow
30% in the front yard... NOT acceptable !


Here is second editorial in the Sacramento Bee that appeared last
Monday...its another good one!


If  you like to add your 2 cents.. send a letter to the editor in the
next few days.. we are flooding the paper with them from all
over...eliminate all restrictions on  vegetables in the front yard is
the bottom line of our effort


http://www.sacbee.com/326/story/19629.html


Reply to me at maddog at ulink.net <mailto:maddog at ulink.net> ... I will
update all after the april 3 council meeting.. it has taken us 3 years
to get to this point....


Bill Maynard , Sacramento


 


Editorial: Needed: A peas treaty


Does council know beans about gardens?


Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, March 26, 2007
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B4

Back in November, when a Sacramento City Council committee mulled a
proposal to restrict the growing of vegetables in front yards, this page
urged the council to give peas a chance.

Since then, numerous local organizations and garden activists have taken
up the cause of peas. Dozens are expected to converge on an April 3
meeting, where the full council is expected to take up a revision to the
city's front yard landscape ordinance that remains unnecessarily hostile
to veggies.

As amended in November, the proposed ordinance would restrict the
growing of vegetables and nontree fruits to no more than 30 percent of a
front yard, with no plants higher than 4 feet. 

 
<http://ads.nandomedia.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/www.sacbee.com/con
tent/opinion/1539285078/Button20/Sacbee/NTL-SprintNextel_300_0701_ZZZ/NT
L-SprintNextel_300_0701.html/34386136303535323436306166343930?1539285078
> 
 Water-sucking lawns? Fine.

Rose bushes that demand pesticides? Go ahead. Nuke your yard.

But a beautiful flowering trellis of legumes? No way, say the yard cops.
Apparently, they don't want our city to showcase Native American plants,
such as corn and tomatoes. They don't give a hill of beans about the
burgeoning movement known as edible landscapes.

Lauren Hammond and Robbie Waters are the Ozzie and Harriet of this yard
policing crusade. Fearful that dried-up corn stalks will soon replace
green grass, they originally supported a restriction on vegetables to 20
percent of a front lot. At a council committee meeting in November,
Sandy Sheedy persuaded the two to agree to 30 percent. To his credit,
Steve Cohn refused to support this fake peas treaty and voted against
the revised ordinance.

The full council should now follow Cohn's lead. As long as property
owners maintain their plants -- particularly Sacramento's magnificent
trees -- the City Council shouldn't be acting as a botanical Big
Brother.

****end***

FYI:  note that the mayor of salt lake city was under fire in january
for having a drought tolerant landscape against their out dated code
which also only allowed turf...


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Last Updated 9:50 am PST Thursday, November 9, 2006

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