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Feed your Neighbours
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
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Wild to me that Americans aren’t allowed to do this
The US is a big place. Whether or not you're allowed to do this depends on where you live.
Yeah, but I've been told America is the Land of the Free, not Land of the Free, some conditions apply. Not applicable in certain jurisdictions. Check with your doctor if you are in an area free enough to grow a garden.
It's the land of the free for the specific class, race, and ideology that phrase was implicitly intended to cover.
It's land of the fee
"Land of the free" has only ever been propaganda. Free to sell your body and soul to a capitalist or starve to death under a bridge. Wow, what freedom.
I went to Portland, OR about a year ago, and wandered aimlessly for a couple hours before concluding that Portland is the world capital of front-yard gardening.
And our average house price is only $550,000!
Yeah, for example, Earthships are more difficult to build here in Europe (regulations...) than in, for example, New Mexico where they originated.
Americans entirely do this. It really just depends where you live
They are, just depends if you're in an HOA or what the laws are if you're within city limits. If you're in unincorporated land then it's pretty free and wild. Earth ships are a thing and started in New Mexico.
Hell, it even depends on the HOA. I live in an HOA and there are plenty of yards in the neighborhood like this. We have a pretty chill HOA. It doesn't do much beyond taking care of a few communal spaces, organizing a couple of annual events like a community garage sale, and enforcing the most absolute basic of yard maintenance requirements. (A well-tended garden on the front yard is perfectly fine. Turning your yard into a junkyard or having three foot high grass in your front yard isn't. You can do what you want with your property, it just needs to be clean and intentional. You could convert your whole yard over to zero-maintenance clover, and that would be perfectly fine.)
And that's the kind of HOA I like. I do want my neighbors to maintain their properties. I want people to be free to mold their homes into whatever form they want, but no one intentionally sets out to have a yard filled with junk cars or three foot high grass. People plant grass with the intention of mowing it, it just gets away from them.
If you want grass, mow it. If you want a garden, plant it and tend it. If you want the lowest environmental impact and least effort, plant clover or other low-maintenance ground cover. Do whatever you want. I don't care. Just keep it clean and intentional. Hell, one of my neighbors keeps a giant demon skeleton in their front yard year-round. It's weird, but it's intentional, so it's fine.
I don't want to live in a neighborhood where every house is the same. I want the freedom to express myself through my home, and I want my neighbors to have the same freedom. But at the same time, I want to live in a place where people maintain their homes. I don't care what form you maintain your home to. But I do want it maintained. Grow as big of a garden as you want, just don't neglect it and let it get overgrown. If you just don't have the time and resources for a lot of yard maintenance, plant something like clover. It doesn't take a lot of effort or resources to keep a yard neat and clean.
lol I just noticed that comment after i did post a very similar comment...
But for example suburbs are indeed a little bit well... badly regulated...
Is it normal in suburbs / cities?
Normal? Probably not normal anywhere. The money and effort in farming usually isn't offset by the production of such a small plot. It would be more of a hobby. What is more common is a dedicated space for farming within a suburban area. Typically they have a shared area and you pay monthly for your plot. Either that or some people with a green thumb in urban areas can turn their high-rise apartment into quite the greenhouse.
When it comes to feeding the masses efficiently farmland is still the dominant and most efficient method in most countries.
It can get overly complicated. there's so many random laws that basically you give up. Like I have a tiny garden in the back yard, which won't give you issues; but the front yard can result in a $250 daily fine if it's not to their liking. I had to cut off part of my driveway, which everyone else has, so my lot can be more "herbaceous" because someone (neighbor that has a tree cutting company, salty cunt) across the street called the city about me trimming a tree so a branch so it didn't fall on my roof. I made sure to get the shittiest invasive grass you can get.
In Massachusetts near Boston I do not have to deal with any of that shit so my front yard looks exactly like this.
As Sam wrote, HOAs are terrible. I thought I escaped by moving only to have the city do the same, sigh. Bonus points: I have a old oak tree that's half dead, can't be cut down because it's "protected" and it's destroying my foundation and driveway. But the next hurricane will likely topple the tree on the road and it's their problem then since the area it's on is "city property" so yeah you're luck you can have a garden. I really wanted to put one in the front yard then again the tree will kill it all anyway.
I'm pretty sure that this mostly comes down to whether or not you have an HOA. HOAs are the literal devil.
More that they don't want to, which is worse.
Depends on HOA I guess.