The Freedom To Farm

[momofdrew]

what ever happened to the victory gardens... The government incouraged them during the 2nd WW...I remember as a little girl walking to my Aunts house and seeing someones entire front yard full of vegetable plants...there was no back yard...where else could they have the garden...
I live in a city and raise chickens no one has complained ...all the kids and their parents check them out on the way to the school next door

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i actually have a newsprint magazine called the Youth's Companion dated from 1918 that is advertising on the front cover to 'Plant A War Garden, Fill The Market Basket. Food Will Win The War!' so victory gardens have been around for quite some time!

 

[digitS']

My grandmother had a victory garden in BC during WWII. What I often see in BC towns are fruit trees and vegetables in front yards. Not all that many US homeowners have those, permitted or not.

I usually don't have comments on threads like this but, you are touching close to home. Not only because I have Canadians in the family, live only a few miles from the border, but I also sell garden produce.

At one of my gardens, I learned that the property owner was in violation of irrigation district rules by having me there. It was after I'd gardened there for quite a few years and it was the last year they owned the property and the last year for my garden there. He learned that he was in violation because he was paying a residential rate and commercial production by someone not the property owner would have changed his irrigation rate.

Now, I'm across the road where acres are irrigated for hay crops. My garden fits into that scenario. But, the point I'm trying to make is that this is a local issue and there are governmental and quasi-governmental bodies where people have made collective decisions and can unmake decisions.

Last summer I was singing the praises of the clothesline while wondering why my neighbors, almost to a person, do not use them. The person I was talking to told me that her HOA does not permit clotheslines! I had never even heard of a "HOA" 30 years ago and 50 years ago had never seen household clothing dried in any other way than on a clothesline outdoors or a clothesrack indoors!

Times change. The irrigation district rules probably date from a century ago but HOA's and all sorts of zoning rules are much more recent.

V, you are probably right about Americans turning to the authorities about neighborhood problems rather than dealing with them personally. I swear, the local police do more marriage counseling than anybody else around here!

I have a neighbor with a teenage son who dropped out of school about 18 months ago. Of course, he hasn't done anything except hang out at his father's house, a short distance away, or his mother's house, next door. He has been around for 10 years now and used to spend a lot of time in my yard looking for special rocks. The other day he came by with his "girlfriend" (God help us!) to take some pictures of her with the flowers in the front yard. (On a side note, his relationship with the girlfriend seems to have ended . . . quickly. Maybe - she had better sense than hang around with a 17-year-old dropout.)

I recently came across some troubling dropout stats and was thinking about sharing them with the kid. High school drop out rates for boys have been stuck around 11 to 12% for the last 20 years! But, here is what should be individually troubling: The median income for an adult American working man is over $40,000/year (entire pay package). So, how many men without a high school diploma reach that median income level? 7%!!

Knowing something about more traditional societies, I can assure you that in a 3rd world farming village, most anyone would be willing to give their eye teeth for a chance at a free education! Criticizing their neighbor's kid probably wouldn't be all that difficult for them either. But, I'm afraid that they don't often have a chance at a free education and providing personal guidance to the kid next door probably just comes down to the lowest common denominator.

We can slide in that direction and may be doing so. The Canadian government has far more involvement in their society and Canada has avoided some of the most recent economic problems burdening the US - their recession was much shorter and recovery has been nearly to pre-recession levels. We could applaud some of their efforts while we look more closely at our own.

Steve

 

[Jared77]

The problem is though that people expect to be taken care of. Nobody and I mean NOBODY takes responsibility for themselves, their actions, or their well being. We have to have warning labels on the sides of coffee cups to tell us they're hot. We live in a welfare state of mind.

Something to seriously think about http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/07/What-is-Poverty to put things in perspective. Yes sometimes things are a struggle. We're pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps here and moving forward too. We had some serious setbacks but we're making sure we're doing whats best for our family and working on putting ourselves in the best position we can for the long term. That's why the garden was expanded this year. We want to can so we can help reduce our costs. Most years we ate everything we grew and didn't can. This year its about putting stuff up for the long term. Yes its about eating better, but if I can save a few hundred dollars the grocery store then so be it. I know I can't live out of my garden, but that few hundred bucks that we can put back into the budget.

We line dry our clothes out here to help keep the house cool by not having to run the dryer. We don't have A/C. Its also why I hunt so hard. Every free moment during the hunting seasons I'm out trying to stock the freezer. At the price of a tag and some hours put in processing what I harvest, I can fill the freezer with lots of meat for less than a penny per lbs. We stock enough meat in our freezer to carry us through till the next season. Yes it work but its cheaper and much more enjoyable than busting my back trying to pull OT to buy all my food. I've always had that mentality about hunting and its now transitioned over to the garden as things for us have changed.

We've had a poor pitiful me nanny state of mind for too long and I think people are starting to take steps to get away from it. I think if things continue as they are with the recession I think we're going to see more and more people taking up the victory garden mentality converting their lawns and portions of their property to gardens. Look at how many folks are keeping chickens? It was vogue for a while, but I think people are seeing the cost benefits of poultry even if its just a few layers and sticking with them. For the same 4+dollars/gallon for gasoline you can till up an area and plant it and reduce your grocery bill vs how many gallons of gas to use the lawnmower to cut grass AND pay that much more for produce at the store? More and more people are slowly coming around to that idea.

I think we've let the pendulum swing too far to one side and its coming back the other way.

 

[scottaleger]

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[vfem]

I just read the blogger's article on 1 acre farming in Mother Earth News Mag for Aug/Sept 2011! Go figure!

I read 2 article's this week online, and I find BOTH inside the MEN Mag for the next two months. I guess I jumped the gun, or I have way too much time on my hands. :/

Well, I understand where you guys are coming from. It's obviously not federal laws in play here. It's definitely local, but from the looks of it... it appears to be breaking some federal protective acts. Whether they sell or not, anywhere, the most the state of city's can ask for is their 'back taxes'. From last a checked though, there are a TON of tax breaks as well for farming one's land in a lot of places. So the city's and state's or Providences may happen to back themselves into a corner and owe them cuts if a decent lawyer jumps on this.

I still say its time we step up and give them their basic rights back. To grow VEGGIE anywhere on their property they want. It's a tomato, not a broken down old rusty car that hasn't ran in 5 years! And I think that is the real reason though laws are in place.

I need to find this HOA article I read a few months ago, I think its a good article that points out the improper powers neighbors have given HOA's. So much control people were losing their homes, trespassing was getting back because neighbor's were in each others yards reporting ever little detail trying to get their neighbor fined so badly they got their property taken away! It was CRAZY!

People need to start fighting, and for each other... not against each other. It should start with a neighbor 5000 miles away speaking up on their behalf because we love what we do and what they are doing as well. We need to protect the right to garden for everyone, or what will we be leaving our children other then a country in debt and high interest rates!