Posted on 04/22/2008 3:55:00 PM PDT by Lorianne
BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and not all of his neighbors are thrilled.
"I'd rather see green grass" than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash's Boulder neighborhood, across the street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. "But those days are slipping away."
work.
A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his yard farms and the seedlings he stores in a greenhouse behind his house.
Farmers don't necessarily live in the country anymore. They might just be your next-door neighbor, hoping to turn a dollar satisfying the blooming demand for organic, locally grown foods.
INDEPENDENT STREET BLOG
Kelly Spors on opportunities down on the yard farm. Read the latest post and share your thoughts.Unlike traditional home gardeners who devote a corner of the yard to a few rows of vegetables, a new crop of minifarmers is tearing up the whole yard and planting foods such as arugula and kohlrabi that restaurants might want to buy. The locally grown food movement has also created a new market for front-yard farmers.
"Agriculture is becoming more and more suburban," says Roxanne Christensen, publisher of Spin-Farming LLC, a Philadelphia company started in 2005 that sells guides and holds seminars teaching a small-scale farming technique that involves selecting high-profit vegetables like kale, carrots and tomatoes to grow, and then quickly replacing crops to reap the most from plots smaller than an acre. "Land is very expensive in the country, so people are saying, 'why not just start growing in the backyard?' "
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
More power to him!
He must not have any teenagers living in his neighborhood!
They don’t eat veggies. They eat pizza and cheeseburgers.
They act like this is something new.
this is EXACTLY what Homeowners Associations are for. Like them or not, they prevent the idiot next store to you from planting corn because he can get $6 a bushel or Kale because the local restaurant has vegan salads on the menu.
There is a reason that there are so many HOAs starting in new communities around the country. Not all of your neighbors can be trusted to keep your neighborhood a ‘residential’ community.
It seems like this would affect one’s resale prospects. I can just see the big-haired, high-heeled realtor marching the prospects past the freshly-manured garden.
“a freshly dug manure patch out front.”
Growing manure, why didn’t I think of that ?
Property rights, gotta love them. More power to him.
They don’t care what they eat. They think it’s macho to destroy a neighbor’s garden. Happened to me last summer. By the kids I actually hired to do lawn work for me. The one little jerk actually made between 6 and 7 hundred bucks workin’ for me. Then he cheated me while snowplowing. I told him to “Go home. I don’t need you anymore.” He then screamed that he’d be back, and would get even! Someone tagged the trees in my front yard last night. I have an idea who did it. But no proof. This is in a nice neighborhood of 250,000 dollar houses, with a very good school system. Kid is 14. We’re in for a lot of trouble with this generation!
My,aren't we fine little snobs and dictators.
You want to control the land?Buy it!
Oh, sorry. I was hoping it wasn’t anything like that.
Exactly why some people chose NOT to buy a home in a HOA neighborhood.
To each his own.
Who is the lady in front of Mr. Hainey?
>> They don’t eat veggies. They eat pizza and cheeseburgers.
Uh... Hello!? CHEESE IS a vegetable.
.
.
isn’t it?
if it’s not it ought to be. It’s yellow, like carrots, must be loaded with beta carrot-ene...
Oh just like my favorite britcom!
The Good Life...Tom and Barbara Good’s dream is to live completely self-sufficiently. This means, among other things, raising their own vegetables and animals for food. Trouble is, they live in the suburbs. Their very conservative neighbors, the Leadbetters, look on, horrified, at this bold experiment.
Oliver’s mother Eunice Douglas
I have absolutely no memory of her. I must have outgrown the show before she became a regular.
Grass belongs in a pasture or meadow.
That is Oliver’s mom.
No, only whiny old ladies.
“Hail to the countess
Hail to the countess
We’re so glad you’re here.
Hail to the countess
Hail to the countess
Raise your glass of beer.”
As sung by the HYPAS...
We lived in a new subdivision with an HOA association in Atlanta. Never again!!!
We now live in an antique house in an old established neighborhood in a small town in NC. We can paint our door any color we like and have. It’s purple, a very tasteful purple that looks great with the gray body and off white trim. ;) And we can plant anything we like in our yard. At least for the present. The town is establishing a historic district and our street is being considered for inclusion. I have neighbors who are totally against it while I’m sort of undecided. I hate the thought of having to get permission to do anything to a house or property that I own.
No idiot (me) that was Lisa’s mom that was the countess.
I don’t think she ever was a regular. Lisa used to call her and she occasionally visited to try and entice them back to NY.
One for your lists?
If more people are smart, they'll do the same.
Food prices are going to soon take a giant leap as the cost of gas filters back through from the truckers who haul 98% of the things we buy, including food - the gas hike HAS to be recouped from the shippers who will then pass it on the to buyers who will pass it on to US.
Many trucking companies right now are experiencing drivers who lease from them turning in their leases and walking away. They simply cannot survive on these prices - deisel is way above $4...try taking on 300 gallons of that at a whack...
Hundred's are going bankrupt.
If something isn't done fast, there's going to be a lot less goods moving.
Supermarkets stock enough food for their areas for 2 days, folks.
Society may never have been as vulnerable as we are now, totally dependent on others for our very food.
When I was a kid on my grandparents farm in the 30's-40's, 86% of the nation was rural and had gardens.
At any given time, we had months worth of food on hand, either in the garden and orchards or in gleaming jars in the cold cellar. Eggs and hens in the coop, beef, milk, cheese and butter in the barn, so to speak, fish in the waters and meat in the woods.
How much food on hand do most people have now? How long could you put food on the table if the sh*t hits the fan?
Very funny series! Penelope Kieth plays the perfect social climbing snob, her husband Jerry is a decent sort, always caught in the middle. Tom Good is a very likable sort and his wife Barbara is the ultimate cutie.
Netflix has it on DVD.
What’s wrong with using the backyard?
You don't own it, you just have one less landlord than other renters. Don't believe me? Try not paying your rent to the goobermint and see what happens.
Story says that's where his greenhouse is - where he gets the seedlings started...
Probably better to have the garden in front rather than the greenhouse, eh wot?
Penelope Keith make me laugh till I hurt.
She’s a hoot! I loved her in The Good Life/Good Neighbors and To The Manor Born.
In my best Homer Simpson voice, “Mmmmmm, ka-a-a-ale”
The Goods used their back yard for their livestock, chickens, a cow and a pig, IIRC. They used to walk the cow and pig down to Surbiton Commons to graze. An act that was found to be entirely legal because that was one of the Commons original purposes and was still on the books. It was one of the funnier episodes.
They had fruits and veg growing everywhere else as they intended to become entirely self sufficient. It was a very funny program.
My husband and I aren’t planning self sufficiency. We do have a veg garden in the rear of our house with grape vines and a few fruit and pecan trees and we have flowers and herbs elsewhere around the property. We also have 4 ducks. Duck eggs are the best for baking! I would like to have a few chickens and I am looking into a cow share for milk (the cow lives at the farm we just get the milk) but no plans for a pig. ;) If we would happen to move, I would like some horses and maybe a small flock of sheep. We have been looking at property in southern VA, but so far haven’t found the house that screams “This is it, I’m the one you want!”. Oh well no hurry.
I once asked a friend of mine' daughter where hamburger came from,
she said the grocery store. She had no idea that cows were hamburger meat. LMAO, now she say's cows are fun to eat.
There's a Bobbie Dooley in every neighborhood...
Can we go back to raising chickens, too? My grandparents had chickens in their yard even in the “city” back in the 60’s-70’s.
I understand HOA’s....live in one....hate it, but understand its purpose....but, I take a perverse pleasure in getting rid of LAWNS!!!! Useless except in parks or places where people play on them. And, furthermore....in a food shortage....his neighbors would be the first robbing him of his goods.
Probably doesn't get great sun exposure...
And there is also a reason why those homes in brown-shirt subdivisions are so difficult to sell.(what a co-inkydink!)
Plus, less "grass" means less illegals/immigrants needed to mow/edge/fertilize, etc. all of it.
I plan on riggin’ up my old digital camera and an alarm. I’ve given this twerp every break possible. But I’ve also informed my LEO buddy of the situation. I’m hopin’ he comes to his senses, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen. If I have to, I’ll screw his ass to the wall, whether his Dad is a friend or not.
[Neighbors who lend their yards to the effort are paid in free produce and yard work.]
Man oh man, this fellow would be so very welcome on my back acre.
I don’t know-haven’t watched in a while.
>Society may never have been as vulnerable as we are now, totally dependent on others for our very food.<
Just another threat to our national security, courtesy of free trade.
Sounds funny.
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