Oak Park, Michigan Resident Julie Bass Faces 93 Days In Jail For Vegetable Garden

This post has been updated with new information and quotations since it was first published on Friday, July 8.

This isn't your typical, garden-variety crime.

After a warning, a ticket and now a misdemeanor charge, an Oak Park, Mich., woman faces up to 93 days in jail for refusing to remove a vegetable crop from her front lawn.

Julie Bass says that she thought it would be "really cool" for the neighbors and kids to see a frontyard garden, but some city officials don't appreciate the vegetable plot.

"It just made me angry that the city can bully you into doing something when you're not in violation of anything," she said.

According to Bass, the disagreement stems from a gray area in the city legislation which allows for decorative planting in the front yard but does not specifically address vegetable gardening. She planted the garden after a busted sewage pipe tore up her lawn.

To fight the charges, Bass has started a blog -- Oak Park Hates Veggies -- to chronicle her battle with the authorities.

"We now find ourselves in a storm of controversy worthy of some high level mischief. Seriously?" she wrote in an entry. "It's a GARDEN. It's not a high crime or treason or murder. IT'S VEGETABLES. And yes, we did throw in a few flowers."

There's also a Facebook page with 980 fans and a thread on the Internet message board Reddit with nearly 400 comments supporting her lawn farming.

According to a local ABC affiliate, city code states that "all unpaved portions of the site shall be planted with grass or ground cover or shrubbery or other suitable live plant material."

Posing the question: Are cabbages, peppers, tomatos and cucumbers "suitable" for the front lawn?

"If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what's common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers," Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski told MyFox Detroit.

Nevertheless, Bass has refused to comply with the city's requests to remove the plants or place them in her backyard.

"I thought that what we were doing was completely in line with what is suitable," Bass said.

As far as whether she's willing to do hard time for farming on the front lawn, Bass says she will fight to the end, but actually going to jail is just too much to think about.

"I'm willing to go to jail in a theoretical sense, but the idea of me going to jail for this is so mind-blowing," she said.

Bass has hired an attorney and a pre-trial is scheduled for July 26.

WATCH:

Comments

[abhorson]

05:48 PM on 07/29/2011

yes if you look up "suitable" you'll find "common" ..

but if you look up "Rulkowski" you'll find as**ole and a picture of a Nazi camp guard !

[Estella Walthour]

10:41 AM on 07/16/2011

IF A FRONT GARDEN WAS ALL WE HAD TO WORRY ABOUT THEN LIFE WOULD BE GOOD INSTEAD,YOU OUT THERE ARE COMPLAINING AND THE GARDEN IS KEPT NEAT .THE THING TO WORRY ABOUT IS WHERE OUR NEXT MEAL OR COMING FROM SINCE PEOPLE LIKE ME DON'T NO WHERE OUR MONEY WILL BE AT,DUE TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE THAT HAS MONEY AND DON'T NEED A GARDEN.PLUS THE CONGRESS WANT PEOPLE LIKE ME TO DIE WITH A HEART ATTACK FROM WORRYING,MAY GOD HELP US ALL THE OLD AND THE POOR I NEED A GARDEN.

[Deanna Jones]

06:07 PM on 07/13/2011

Notice there is only one person commenting here who thinks that Julie is in the wrong? The liberal left thinking they should tell the rest of the world how to run their lives. This is what's wrong with the world today; too many elitists who are convinced that everything should be done their way because they know "best".

[swaggerswagger]

06:16 PM on 07/13/2011

How in the world do you interpret a legal question such as this as one of political ideology? And how do you know that the city planner mentioned in the article is, as you rather redundantly labeled, part of the "liberal left"?

And yes, local city planners are totally the elitists that control the ways of the world.

[Deanna Jones]

06:46 PM on 07/13/2011

It's not a legal question at all, but rather one of a prevasive attitude of someone knowing how other people should live their lives. From what light bulbs to buy to what you can feed your children; it's an ignorant but opinionated minority who are too busy spending other people's money controlling the lives of others. In other words, Democrats.

[amazingfacts123]

11:20 AM on 07/18/2011

testing 123

[Ray Slover]

05:19 PM on 07/13/2011

if the arguement is about the definition of "common" get all of her neighbors to quickly plant vegetable gardens in their front yards as well. then the street will all be "common"

[cribbisque]

07:54 AM on 07/14/2011

And that would be fine, too, if it became the norm. But apparently some don't feel that way and it seems to include a neighbor or two. What of their rights?

[Shawn Cielo]

04:49 AM on 07/18/2011

So let me get this right Cribbi; The other people on the block, should, have a "right" to decide whether a woman grows vegetables in HER front yard, on HER property that she feeds her family from?(That sounds idiotic) If anything home horticulture should be encouraged, and I'm sure the reason other people on the block do not have gardens is just due to an inability to tend to it(whether it be time restraint or lack of know how). Lets put some of our taxes towards helping people plant gardens instead of prosecuting fellow citizens for doing the latter. Allow the citizens to have independence, I thought that is what that declaration thingy was for anyway. Sincerely, Distraught Tax Payer.

[Arx Ferrum]

05:00 PM on 07/13/2011

We have this silly notion that liberty means freedom to live as we choose so long as we don't cause harm or discomfort to another.

The reality of this, our modern world, is that freedom is merely conceptual and that government for, by and of the people, has long since been lost.

Today, one can be dragged to jail for displaying a flag... any flag, for working on an antique automobile in your driveway, for placing a Christmas related item in your yard, for allowing your child to join with girl or boy scouts and sell lemonade in your driveway.

Municiple tyrannies exist all across the country where minor bureaucrats take on the role of local inquisitors to enforce narrow-minded views of civil correctness.

This isn't what our forefathers and mothers signed up for. Liberty has been sacrificed for some horrible concept that runs counter to everything we know about our species.

You simply cannot please all the people, all of the time. To attempt this is to displease most of the people, all of the time.

[Pietro Potesta]

03:40 PM on 07/13/2011

If those city officials worked in Seattle and were to use all their time just to address this "problem", it'd take them to retirement just to "fix" one neighborhood...

[cribbisque]

06:04 PM on 07/13/2011

Which is fine. Seattle does things differently and that is acceptable there. Apparently it isn't in Oak Park.

[Mark Schlehr]

02:27 PM on 07/13/2011

The problem is the wording of the city ordinance which is not very water conservation oriented. Requiring live ground cover is an outdated and wasteful act. The short term solution would be for the city to request live ground cover BETWEEN AND AROUND THE PLANTER BOXES. The long term solution is to have the ordinance updated to a more ecological solution. Prosecution of this matter is wrong. Any public officials who were involved in taking this course of action need to be removed from office or reprimanded at a minimum.

[cribbisque]

07:58 AM on 07/14/2011

You know what? I water my garden for 15 minutes. I water my lawn for 15 minutes. People have been arguing that a garden takes less water than grass. I am not a horticulturist, but seems to me to be about equal. When we lived in different climes where rationing was usual, we had indiginous plantings. In AZ, we had rock/glass gardens. That was new to my midwestern eyes.

[Mark Schlehr]

03:28 PM on 07/14/2011

She's required to have LIVE ground cover. A bit antiquated wouldn't you say? You already know from experience that a rock/glass ground cover can have just as much or more curb appeal as a typical grass yard. I never claimed a garden uses less water. Water was rationed in AZ, but if you had the money, you could pay for extra water use, correct?
To go off on a tangent, consider this, If you want to put a limitation on water use, then consider this, if a corporation is equal to one person in the eyes of the law, then Monsanto is only allowed to use as much water as you, and vice versa! (oh but that's not how it works, in real life, right?)

[maxwelldog]

01:08 PM on 07/13/2011

Sounds like a GREAT idea!
Come to think of it, potato plants make a nice shrub that has flowers all Summer, and then, when the flowers are gone, spade up free food! TATERS!
Corn looks (and tastes) better than some wrought iron handrails along sidewalks.
Mums help keep rabbits away, but evidently not much good at discouraging sourpusses who complain about a garden. Not so much the amount grown, it could all be put together quite nicely. Sweet peas have flowers and FOOD, while roses give flowers AND THORNS!

GOOD GROWING, to you, Julie.
(ps, Thrive and some miracle grow used carefully will improve your crop immensely.)

[cribbisque]

08:04 AM on 07/14/2011

You couldn't grow corn as a railing. It must be planted 12" apart in rows of four for pollunation. Potatoes of all varieties are lovely and even grow well in a container. They do make lovely plants. There is much you can grow in limited space. I grow all my herbs and I can or freeze a year's worth of pesto with my basil crop. But I wouldn't claim that my efforts are large scale enough to call "providing food for my family." Now, it was different with my aunt. The only food they bought were baking items, fish and meat. Easily 90% was produced out of a backyard garden. Part of it was personal choice, enjoyment of the activity, but honesty forced my aunt to admit that it wasn't necessarily cost effective. They just preferred the quality of it.

[maxwelldog]

10:00 AM on 07/14/2011

I used to think like that, until I ended up out here, practically living inthe corn fields...
The spacing between ears yes...maybe 10", 12", but...
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llok2m24be1qewyudo1_400.jpg
is called the three sisters. Usually corn, beans and squash.
The beans vine, and by using the beans to "tie" a stick of around an inch, inch and a half round horizontally against the corn creates a wall that I've seen people stumble into and be held up.

Still, the court battle about to ensue should be short, because a fair amount of agriculturists can easily point out that it is GRASS that is a weed.
Plus, except for some disgruntled cows who argue the point, grass tastes terrible.

d=^))

[mchmlb]

11:15 AM on 07/13/2011

I live in Oak Park & don`t want to see gardens planted in front yards.(We do have codes we have to follow)
We have laws & the law is you cannot plant a garden in your front yard.
(Plant your garden in the back yard along with your tacky plastic ornaments)
Also,Why would ANYONE in their right mind want to eat the food after planting in soil that has been tainted with SEWAGE?

[Nancy Craven]

11:56 AM on 07/13/2011

Then move to Cuba where government control is complete.

[mchmlb]

11:40 AM on 07/14/2011

I AM A PROUD UNITED STATES CITIZEN & TAXPAYER,LOVE MY COUNTRY & WILL PROCEED TO LIVE HERE,BUT YOU ARE FREE TO MOVE ANYWHERE YOU WANT TO MOVE TO. :-)

[richardag]

11:58 AM on 07/13/2011

Actually, that is not the law.

[mchmlb]

11:26 AM on 07/14/2011

We have codes which are LAWS. :-)

[YoBear]

10:37 AM on 07/13/2011

Of course the two story house next to hers is perfectly fine. Sigh. I mean who would you rather have as a neighbor? Two story house or veggie garden in front yard?

[Koeiseun]

09:20 PM on 07/13/2011

The two story house....all of the houses in my neighborhood are two or three stories.....

[YoBear]

11:37 AM on 07/14/2011

Haha... of course in that case. Her house is a one story house.

[maxwelldog]

10:02 AM on 07/14/2011

the veggie garden.

wait...do we get points for being right?

[YoBear]

11:37 AM on 07/14/2011

You can have the eggplant if I get the snap peas ;)

[mlowdude]

09:04 AM on 07/13/2011

KEVIN RULKOWSKI city planner has way too much time on his hands and I never knew Michigan was part of communist china... once again proving what kind of a country we are really living in when we say land of the free..it is NOT.! Leave your garden where it is in your yard!

[laurama]

08:00 AM on 07/13/2011

An easier solution than fighting or jail time:

1. Ask the city if they will just allow this particular garden to be harvested, rather than destroyed mid-season.

2. Next year, instead of the raised gardens she has, she can do what I did, and that create actual flower beds (that look as common as her neighbors') and strategically place her veggie plants amongst her flowers. I planted asparagus, tomatoes and peppers in one flower bed (it's raised, but bordered with brick) with regular bushes. In one of my rose gardens, I planted raspberries and blueberries. Then I have a raised garden on the other side of my porch with squash that's so huge that it's covered the raised garden wood border. Then in 2 planters on each side of my porch, I have spinach. My gardens all look like regular greenery, and only if you get close do you realize there are vegetables (and fruit) scattered throughout. I've used them as a decoration, but also as a food source.

Unfortunately, the city does have a right to make certain laws - like the height of a fence, how far from the road you have to place a structure, how many cars you can have in your yard, whether or not you have to use gutters and so on.

[cribbisque]

08:50 AM on 07/14/2011

A voice of reason. Thank you! We have always planted veggies and flowers, but because they didn't call negative attention to themselves, I can't even tell you if anyone truly noticed. It surely wasn't what this woman has planted. I can honestly say that I wouldn't want Julie Bass's example next door while what Laurama suggests sounds lovely. If you go to the blog and read Julie's arguments, it just sounds like a child, upset that she didn't get what she wanted. If you just listen to the video snippet, it sounds like something atogether different. This isn't a harrassed homeowner.

[Shawn Cielo]

05:21 AM on 07/18/2011

When did we give up our RIGHT to individuality(why should she have to use an alternative)? The plants aren't damaging any city property, obstructing traffic, disturbing the peace, breaking sound regulations and nor do they smell bad, the only thing it affects is the "common" look of the neighborhood. Who voted on how the neighborhood should look, and when? When they send out invitations for that ballot, Then we can define "common". Until then there is no way she broke any laws. Broken glass and trash are "common" in Michigan's urban areas can she do that?

[cribbisque]

04:51 PM on 07/21/2011

Some of those ordinances come out of master deeds.

[jammer4306]

07:21 AM on 07/13/2011

Local governments out of control

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ponHWfGssVo

[caugrl]

07:20 AM on 07/13/2011

Stuppid law. Let her have her garden. It is her land and she is hurting no one.

[jm26dream]

02:57 PM on 07/13/2011

Her garden killed my family

[caugrl]

01:21 AM on 07/15/2011

Sarcasm? Otherwise, do write the book. I'd be interested in the story.

[rg686217]

06:23 AM on 07/13/2011

I find it interesting that people think they should be able to keep a property without making the payments. That is just never going to happen.

[caugrl]

07:21 AM on 07/13/2011

Where did you read that she was not paying? I didn't see that anywhere in the article.