With each passing day, it seems the United States of America, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is becoming more and more like the Communist Russia I learned about in elementary school where people weren’t allowed to grow their own food unless the State “allowed” it.
In this latest crackdown on citizens simply trying to provide for themselves using the most basic of skills – gardening – the USDA’s Rural Development Agency is forbidding Rosie, an industrious 4-year old girl in South Dakota from using a small, unused area outside her subsidized housing unit to grow green vegetables.
Rosie’s mother, Mary (names changed to protect the child’s identity), is single and severely disabled. She and her daughter live on a fixed income disability payment of $628/month. The garden vegetables growing just outside her backdoor lovingly tended by Rosie provide a fresh and healthy addition to their diet that they could not otherwise easily afford.
Rosie started the garden in May 2013, but now the property management company has ordered the garden be removed this week!
The reason?
The property management company claims that gardening goes against the rules set by the USDA’s Rural Development Agency which forbids residents to have structures of any kind within landscaped areas. It seems to me that the practice of growing vegetables by the most needy in our society would take precedence over landscaping, wouldn’t you agree?
I wonder if the USDA plans to establish “rules” about breathing air in subsidized areas too?
The Federal bureaucracy seems to think that it owns those individuals who receive any sort of government assistance and that their behavior is completely within its jurisdiction to control no matter how ridiculous or blatantly un-American the power-tripping “rules” they decide to put in place may be.
Think this is an isolated case? Â It’s not. Â I write regularly on this blog about these outrageous situations where ordinary citizens are bullied by out of control bureaucrats, the most recent being a Mother in Maine who was harassed and threatened by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for feeding her healthy, robust 3 month old son homemade goat milk formula instead of horribly unhealthy commercial formula from the store laced with rancid vegetable oils and GMOs!
What You Can Do Now to Help Rosie
It is truly unfathomable that our country has degenerated to the point where a person can no longer garden without permission from bureaucratic thugs who get paid with our hard earned tax dollars to think up these rules – Â not laws –Â rules that have never been voted on by the elected representatives of the citizens expected to abide by those rules.
If you recall, this is exactly the sort of authoritarian insanity that started the American Revolutionary War (tea party anyone?).
Tell the USDA where it can put its “rules” against gardening by those living in rural, subsidized areas.
Sample Email to USDA
You can copy/paste the email template below to send directly from your email provider. Template provided courtesy of Kitchen Gardeners International, the source of this story.
To:Â [email protected]
Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject:Â Allow USDA-subsidized housing residents to grow vegetable gardens
Message body:
Dear Director Meeks,
I urge you to make a loud and clear statement to all the property management companies your agency contracts that USDA-subsidized residents have the right to keep their own vegetable gardens provided that these gardens are actively maintained. Vegetable gardens grow healthy and affordable foods as well as a sense of community. Rather than preventing low-income and disabled residents from providing for themselves, we should be doing everything we can to encourage them. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely yours,
(Your name, your town, your state)
Important Updates to This Story
8/27/2013:Â FINAL UPDATEÂ and details on Rosie’s Victory Garden!
8/26/2013:  A detailed update to this story is provided here.
8/25/2013: Â Roger Doiron, Director of Kitchen Gardeners International, has provided more details on this emerging story. The USDA has claimed in email correspondence to Mr. Doiron that it has no written rules preventing Mary and Rosie from having a garden (despite the property management company’s insistence to the contrary). On the other hand, the USDA hasn’t come to Mary and Rosie’s defense either and by allowing the property management company it has a contract with to call the shots and bully Mary and Rosie it is essentially enforcing such a rule no matter what is claimed via email.
Bureaucratic rules are notoriously confusing to understand let alone interpret, but if the USDA stands behind its assertion that there are no “rules” – written OR unwritten – against gardening in subsidized housing, it should stop the property management company under the auspices of the USDA from forcing Mary and Rosie to remove their garden.
The USDA pays most of the rent for Mary and thousands of citizens like her around the United States. Â It should do the right thing and insist that property owners and managers of subsidized housing permit residents to grow their own food in well cared for gardens rather than look the other way when residents are bullied for their efforts at self sufficiency. Â After all, the stated mission of the USDA Rural Development Agency is to “improve the quality of life in rural America”. Gardening surely would be supportive of this important goal.
Source
Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI).  Rosie and Mary’s real names and exact location in South Dakota have not been revealed in order to protect the identity of a minor child.  Please contact KGI Director Roger Doiron, [email protected] if you wish to further verify the validity of this story.
If feel as if I’m not getting complete information from this article.
“forbids residents to have structures of any kind within landscaped areas”
Is there some kind of structure built in the garden, perhaps a lattice on which vining plants may grow? Or is the property manager deeming the garden itself to be a “structure”?
Perhaps that photo is the actual girl in garden associated with this story. If it is, tell her mother to lift that pallet out of there – problem solved!
I’m seeing a pallet wrapped with plastic across the bottom and filled with soil and planted. There is also a plastic container. It is not a garden planted in existing terrain and that is probably what the problem is. An above ground planting. I used to have rental property too and there is a reason why a landlord doesn’t want certain things going on. It’s a shame but instead of cursing each other how about putting together some money for them? Anybody up for a contribution to a fund?
if you really want to help, send them the fixin’s for a raised garden bed that they can erect on their own property, even on concrete. or window boxes that they can put right on their windows.
be carefull what you ask for. if it can be proved who tends the garden, they are likely to reduce some of their benefits because they are growing their own food. i wouldn’t put it past them.
do not send them money because that WOULD reduce any benefits they are getting. if you
DO send money, send cash or gift cards. even postal money orders could be used against them.
i am NOT kidding in saying the above. i have just applied for benefit assistance and i am being penalized for having $142.00 in the bank which is for bills. they don’t care.
How much food can you grow in a small garden anyway? I have a 1,000 sq ft veg garden and it provides us with, maybe, 20% of our total vegetable intake for the whole year, including what I can & freeze! I doubt that this child’s garden is even a fraction of mine.
Just as a side issue, people like to think they are somehow “feeding themselves” like the settlers did 200 years ago just because they have a row of lettuce & radish. I encourage everyone to grow something, anything, in any amount, it’s good for your soul in every way, but it is really a spit in the ocean out of your food intake.
structures are buildings not veggies or is someone afraid they may grow into a high rise apt with no rental fees
As horrible this appears, it’s not as bad as it sounds. I feel for the girl and her mother, but they are in FEDERAL SUBSIDIZED housing. However stupid they seem those rules are in place for a reason. Yes, it’s unfortunate, and yes, government is sticking its nose in everything these days, BUT that little girl and her mother are living in a safe environment with a DRASTICALLY reduced rent. She could easily be forking over her entire monthly check for a one-bedroom unit in a dangerous low-rent nieghborhood, or worse, living in a homeless shelter. Assuming, since the mother gets less benefits than I do, they are also receiving food stamps, they can use that money to purchase locally grown produce at the grocery store.
They should ask their property manager to consider getting approval for putting planter boxes/plots somewhere on the property so they can grow veggies in accordance with HUD/USDA regulations. My apartment complex, which is federally subsidized by HUD, much like the one in which “Rosie” lives , has planter boxes in our courtyard, and many residents grow veggies & flowers in them. If you want/need government assistance so badly, as unfair as it can be, you NEED to play by the rules. Instead of crying foul, be thankful for what you have, and find a solution .Do I like all the rules at my place? No. Do I follow them so I can continue to live within my means in a safe environment? You bet your behind I do! If the property manager is them problem, they need to take their concerns to the regional manager.
Although I think this is sad, I’m not really sure what this has to do with the government. The facts are this:
The family does NOT own the property.
The bed is landscaped (and therefore probably laden with pesticides or weedkiller).
If the property management does not want a garden in that location, they have the right to demand it removed. Yes, it’s sad that they are not willing to work with the family, but again, it is their right.
I have also heard (sorry not sure which state) that someone who owns their house has been forbidden to grow vegetables in their own front garden, for the simple reason it is the front and not the back.