Woman Sues City of Tulsa For Cutting Down Her Edible Garden

Originally posted by frazzle

Originally posted by Pervius
The soil in US cities by these homes isn't exactly very good for farming.

Lead paint, asbestos, chemicals dumped over the decades killing ants/bugs, carcinogens, fallout.......

If you want to grow your own food, your front yard in a city is the LAST place you want to grow it.
For all we know the prior tenants of this home used the front yard to work on cars and the soil is full of oil/antifreeze/brake fluid and battery acid.

She picked a horrible place to grow food/herbs/medicine.

Plant a seed where the soil is polluted with oil/antifreeze/brake fluid and/or battery acid and guess what will happen. Clue: nothing. The city would have had an easy job cutting her plants down as nothing would have been there but black greasy soil.

Millions of people grow gardens inside city limits and you'll have a hard time proving anyone has ever been harmed by that produce.

Fraz, what you dont know about agriculture keeps shining through.

Most major cities do indeed have an inordinate amount of industrial waste and heavy metals in the soil. I certainly wouldnt go as far as Pervious has, it's hardly a reason to NEVER grow food in the city (I have done so for years now), but to deny outright the existence of these toxins, or that they can indeed leach into the foods you grow in those soils is just wrong.

Areas near high-traffic roads and highways contain heavy metals. Many homes in the past were painted with lead paint, and as that paint chips off, that lead can seep into the ground. In fact, houses in the past 100 years have been built with ALL kinds of toxins that leech into the ground (and ground water). And these ABSOLUTELY seep into the roots and fruits of the plants they grow in.

Plants “uptake” soil pollution through their roots. If the contamination is shallow, then deep rooted corn would have a hard time even being exposed, but shallow rooted lettuce will be exposed non-stop.

www.euro.who.int...

sourcedb.cas.cn...

www.designing-edible-gardens.com...

www.ehow.com...

reply to post by stanguilles7


phytoremediation is the use of green plants to remove pollutants from the environment or render them harmless.

www.ars.usda.gov...

So who knows nothing about agriculture?

Originally posted by frazzle
reply to post by stanguilles7

 

phytoremediation is the use of green plants to remove pollutants from the environment or render them harmless.

www.ars.usda.gov...

Which obviously contradicts your previous claim that plants cant live in polluted soil, doesnt it?

Plant a seed where the soil is polluted with oil/antifreeze/brake fluid and/or battery acid and guess what will happen. Clue: nothing.

reply to post by stanguilles7


No, it doesn't contradict anything I said. Unless you know which varieties to plant where, you'll end up with black greasy soil.

While some people are busy talking about what all this woman DOESN'T know, they aren't realizing that having a hundred different varieties of plants in her "garden" and knowing what each one is used for, as well as knowing how to process them, requires a great deal of study about organic farming.

reply to post by frazzle


But, again, you just said plants wont grow in soil with toxins. And then you said they could.

reply to post by stanguilles7


Did you know you can test the soil, amend according to the recommendations and grow anything. In many parts of the U.S., you can get free or low cost soil tests from your county extension service.

Do you know for a fact that this wasn't done? Do you know for a fact that she didn't simply remove any toxic soil? and replace it? Phytoremediation is mainly used in extreme situations like oil spills and mining contamination, but plants are often used for less severe problems.

You can protest anything and everything I say until the cows come home and start eating your toxic cabbage. Things work out much better when those busy bodies I was talking about keep their big yaps shut and mind their own damn business.

Have a nice day. Be careful of what you eat.

reply to post by Thunder heart woman
Every neighborhood has at least one Gladis Kravitz in it.They take it upon themselves to police the area looking for anything and everything to complain about.luckily I haven't been harassed yet.

reply to post by frazzle


Your comments dont even relate to my point at all. I made no comment about the quality of this ladies soil. Your just being evasive, because I pointed out a huge contradiction in your claims.

Have a good day.

I agree that this situation looks fishy, but we cannot rule out the simple fact that most public workers are idiots, and their bosses take the crown for idiocy. So it is possible that the town mistakenly took down her plants, which in case she should get money from the lawsuit. On the other hand the local town ordinance may declare that she cannot have edible plants in her front yard due to sanity or something.

But if you go to the suburbs, especially around the west side of Lake Travis, where all the people from the San Fernando Valley settled, no way would they put up with that. Everyone's garage doors has to be the same color.

Don't you love it when people leave some place and try to change the new one into the old one.

reply to post by conspiretolive

On the other hand the local town ordinance may declare that she cannot have edible plants in her front yard due to sanity or something.

What is your meaning? That whole sentence made no sense.

Also, they can't just change rules when they wish arbitrarily and edible was the rules, which she obliged.

Originally posted by conspiretolive
I agree that this situation looks fishy, but we cannot rule out the simple fact that most public workers are idiots, and their bosses take the crown for idiocy. So it is possible that the town mistakenly took down her plants, which in case she should get money from the lawsuit. On the other hand the local town ordinance may declare that she cannot have edible plants in her front yard due to sanity or something.

Sanity or sanitary?

Holy crap! Thats so messed up, I'm from Tulsa too, time to go booby trap my garden! ^_^

Especially since a;lsdkfjds second line =)

Noting the posts that mention vehicles in driveways: I live in a small town in Missouri, and here you can not even keep a car in your driveway that is not registered and street legal without covering it. I lost my license, so I didn't bother to renew the tags on my car, just left it in the driveway for lack of anywhere else for it. Now, it's not some junkpile sitting on blocks, but a nice looking, running sports car, so I was surprised when my landlord told me the city had sent him a letter saying I had to cover it or he would be fined.

So I contacted them, & they told me that just because the tags were expired, I couldn't park it in my driveway without covering it. They then went on to tell me it had to be a certain material (I forgot what), no plastic tarps, and had to be fitted to the car. I thought WTF, okay? So I go to the store and pay 40$ for a car cover and put it on. Not 3 weeks later, the car cover disappears. About 2 days after that, the landlord gets another letter, fined if I don't cover it in so many days. So I go buy another one and cover it again. Guess what... a few weeks later that one disappears, about 2 days later the landlord gets a letter... I went through the same thing over and over for months. I even tied the car covers down to cement blocks next to the wheels to be sure they weren't "blowing away", and still they'd disappear, and just like clockwork the landlord would get a letter 2 or 3 days later. I finally got fed up & had to just rent a storage unit & put the car in there.

The landlord said they were probably just doing it to mess with him because he was an out-of-towner and had bought alot of properties in town, & some of the city council here didn't like outsiders so they were hurassing him & his renters. He then told me a whole list of other things these guys were doing, & I was utterly appalled at some of the things these "city inspectors" and the like were doing. Some of these guys are simply despicable beyond description and have no limits as to what they'll do to people living in their town.

I bet it looked like s**t. She said someone complained about her yard in her last house. This lady doesn't want to mow.

I wouldn't want to live next to her. Spiders, scorpions, mice, rats, skunks, racoons live in that mess. I know because I have a neighbor who doesn't cut his alley.

Hurrah for the city!

I am amazed at what some of these ppl can do and have the guts to stand up to this #. More power to her.

Originally posted by NotThat
I bet it looked like s**t. She said someone complained about her yard in her last house. This lady doesn't want to mow.

I wouldn't want to live next to her. Spiders, scorpions, mice, rats, skunks, racoons live in that mess. I know because I have a neighbor who doesn't cut his alley.

Hurrah for the city!

"I Bet" means that you don't really know. And how do you know that she doesn't want to mow? Just because she prefers her greenery as edible instead of ornamental? Can't eat grass.

Maybe you're right but maybe you're wrong as well.

Peace

Bump for anyone that missed this and might see it now. This is really sickening, read about it here a few minutes ago and checked if there was a thread on it yet : Natural News

Funnily enough I found it linked from this page about a town not too far from here : Small West Yorkshire town aims to be first town with food self-sufficiency by growing all its own vegetables

Can't believe things are that bad in America that you have the "law" just being basic criminals like that. They're really scared about people eating their own food aren't they instead of processed and chemically messed up junk? I hope they get sued and that stories like this bring about the end of what they're doing. And I hope that if there's a bigger agenda behind all this it's eventually leaked out and there's some people high up going out of business/losing their positions in gov-corp.

Originally posted by robhines


Can't believe things are that bad in America that you have the "law" just being basic criminals like that. They're really scared about people eating their own food aren't they instead of processed and chemically messed up junk? I hope they get sued and that stories like this bring about the end of what they're doing.

Don't base your impression of the state of American gardens by this one isolated, local jurisdiction issue. This is in no way an example of a larger problem. This is a local one. Plenty of people have gardens. In cities. On rooftops. In abandoned lots. In schools.

Originally posted by SoymilkAlaska

Originally posted by stanguilles7

Originally posted by Domo1
You have got to bee expletiving kidding me. No plants over a foot? On your own property? Getting cited for having an inoperable vehicle IN THE DRIVEWAY? I would have lost my expletive. I should be able to erect (heh) a 15 foot tall concrete penis ON MY OWN PROPERTY.

neighborhoods routinely have local ordinances saying what you can do on your property.

Not saying I approve. Just pointing out they exist. Just because it's 'your property' doesnt mean you can do whatever you want, especially in city limits.

i don't like you and i strongly disagree with your opinion, politely.


i added you as a rival.

You don't have to like me, and you dont have to agree with my statement. But my statement is one of fact. Feel free to disprove it with contrary information, not a tantrum.