City says it won’t enforce garden rules

Officials say they won’t totally repeal regulations on vegetable patches

After a new state law banned cities and counties from regulating vegetable gardens, Orlando has dropped enforcement of its regulations on them — but won’t totally repeal its ordinances, officials said.

In some instances, where gardens aren’t specifically named, the rules will stay, and places they are mentioned will be amended, assistant city attorney Kyle Shephard said.

For example, city code calls for street addresses to be seen from the road and states they can’t be blocked by plants, whether they’re bean stalks or droopy limbs from oaks.

“There’s a little clause in the bill that saves some of our regulations,” said Shephard, adding that vegetable gardens can’t be regulated any stricter than other vegetation. “It’s all landscaping, so you couldn’t have a tree in the way or corn in the way.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law last month. The legislation was inspired by a Miami Shores couple whose village’s ordinance wouldn’t allow a garden in their front yard. The couple, Tom Carroll and Hermine Ricketts, replanted the garden last week, the Miami Herald reported.

In Orlando, the City Council passed an ordinance in 2013 after the city’s own dispute over gardens. The rules prevented veggies or turf grass from covering more than 60 percent of a front yard. Shephard said those were on the books for water-consumption purposes.

The city also bans veggies from within three feet of a neighbor’s property without a fence, which it also won’t be able to enforce.

During the 2013 debate, officials argued that vegetable aficionados and those seeking strict rules came to a compromise on the city’s ordinance. The Florida League of Cities had used the Orlando rules as an argument

“There’s a little clause in the bill that saves some of our regulations. It’s all landscaping, so you couldn’t have a tree in the way or corn in the way”

Kyle Shepard, city attorney on how vegetable gardens can’t be regulated any stricter than other vegetation

against the state proposal, though it had little effect, with legislators overwhelmingly signing off on the preemption.The law went into effect July 1.

JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL Orlando activist and community gardener Rob Greenfield, in his garden, talks about his one-year project to eat only what he can grow at his Audubon Park home, or harvest elsewhere in Central Florida.