Suburban Vegetation

Replacing the front lawn with food, one square foot at a time.

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The yard continues to get "out of control." I worked in the rain today to plant marigolds, petunias, milkweed, New England aster, blue wood aster royal catchfly, wormwood, ox eye daisies, and rattlesnake master. More vegetables and herbs will go in the ground tomorrow. #suburbangarden #frontyardgarden #frontlawngarden #gardening #nativeplants

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Our "out of control" yard is a topic of discussion on our neighborhood's Nextdoor page this morning. Apparently we are the anti-Christ and our failure to maintain a perfect grass lawn is destroying the neighborhood. #frontyardgarden #frontlawngarden #suburbangarden #gardeningisnotacrime #gardening #garden

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Our Front Yard Garden Threatened in Fishers, IN

There was another DPW drive-by today. The same code enforcement employee who visited when we were first reported. I was outside tidying up some edging, and he stopped to chastise me for not understanding the violation letter correctly. Keep in mind we have until 5/25 to comply. Apparently re-planting the strip between the street and the sidewalk was not sufficient. I was also supposed to remove all plants in the area extending 12 inches into our property from the edge of the sidewalk and re-plant that with grass seed as well. The letter said that the public right of way extends "12 inches inside the sidewalk," which I, silly little bubblehead that I am, interpreted literally, as in within the middle of the concrete sidewalk. I was also warned, under the guise of being helpful, that all of our plants which are more than 8 inches tall may be subject to municipal code enforcement and may need to be cut down if someone reports those. Sounds more like a threat for further action against us. I've gone ahead and moved more plants, then planted more grass seed in the offending 12 inch strip. Once again, Fishers, you have been saved from violets and lemon balm. Rejoice! But Chris and I are both unhappy that they definitely appear to be targeting us for more nitpicking. At least one sternly worded letter and possibly some contacts with local media sources will be forthcoming. Gardening is not a crime, and it is ridiculous that Fishers apparently plans to treat it as such..

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I was outside trimming back some stray weeds when I see yet another Fishers DPW truck pull onto our street and stop a couple houses short of ours. I really am starting to think we're being watched. #annoyed #governmentoverreach

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Green beans beginning to sprout. Seed was saved from last year, don't remember the variety. #gardening #garden #vegetablegarden #suburbangarden #frontyardgarden #frontlawngarden #growyourownfood #growfoodnotlawns

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While I stayed busy planting and weeding, @askcheese bottled two batches of beer and 7 gallons of hard cider. #homebrew #homebrewing #makeyourownbeer

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Last weekend, I found a few shriveled ground cherries from last year's crop. I removed the seeds and planted a few dozen of them in containers. We now have a bunch of ground cherry seedlings coming up. #ediblelandscaping #suburbangarden #frontyardgarden #frontlawngarden #seedsaving #growfoodnotlawns #growyourownfood

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More plants, this time from the indiana Native Plants and Wildflower Society sale. #suburbangarden #frontyardgarden #frontlawngarden #perennials #wildflowers #nativeplants

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A successful outing at the @connerprairie Heirloom Plant Sale. Tomatoes, peppers, herbs and ground cherries!

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I started this Tumblr account in 2014 with the intention of using it like a gardening notebook. I didn’t do a good job keeping up with it. But the garden was growing well. In October 2014, we decided to make the whole front yard into garden space and brought in a few truckloads of compost to help make that happen. We planted winter rye for a cover crop and looked forward to getting underway in the spring.

We had spoken with several of our nearest neighbors to let them know what we planned to do before we started the project. No one objected. But on April 20, 2015, an employee from the Code Enforcement department of the city of Fishers, IN showed up. They told me someone had complained about our property, and they were there to take photos and assess us for any violations. I was told that we should receive notice of any violations within a week.

On April 28, I saw another city employee pull up to our property and get out of his truck. I went outside and asked if he was there because of the complaints about our property. He replied that he was there to assess the sidewalks on our block, nothing related to our property.

On May 4, 2015, we finally received a letter from Code Enforcement. It said that current ordinances allowed us to have garden plants in our front yard instead of a traditional lawn, but that the strip between the sidewalk and street must be planted with grass only. We were directed to have this done by May 25. By noon on May 5, I had removed the rye and a few annual flowers that were planted there and covered the area with grass seed.

On May 7, around 2 pm, I returned home from an errand. A city truck had pulled onto our our street about a half-block ahead of me. They stopped in front of our house. When I pulled into my driveway, they promptly left. They may very well have been stopped there for reasons not related to our lawn issues, but it struck me as rather suspicious. I would not be surprised if the city is unhappy that they don’t have a legal reason to force us to return our lawn to a more traditional state. We will be watching for any more unexpected visits and keeping track of them. We will be posting about our front yard garden more frequently to show that growing food on the front lawn is a perfectly practical and attractive use of the land. Gardening is not a crime.

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The garden is full of food and color right now. We've been enjoying a good haul of greens, peas and green beans. Cucumbers, squash, tomatillos, tomatoes, and ground cherries are coming on. Lots of color from the coneflowers and daylilies. Time to start planning and planting starts for the fall garden.

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Enjoying flowers in the garden.

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First signs of tomato blossoms on the Broad Ripple Yellow Currants.

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Picked salad greens in between thunderstorms.

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The rain keeps coming down today.

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Strawberries coming soon.

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Chives are in bloom. Peonies, irises, and roses are nearly ready to flower. It looks like I have a small stinging nettle patch growing between the rose bush and the biggest hops plant. Another hops plant has reached past the top of its trellis. The early spring greens and the peas are enjoying this week's cool rainy weather, not sure how the newly sprouted bush beans will tolerate it.