You know it's important when the New York Times runs a story that's a couple of thousand words long. When it's a story about gardening, though, you start to wonder whether the editor may have lost her marbles - or found them.
Just before Christmas, a story appeared about Jason Helvenston from Orlando, a self-employed sustainability consultant for the building trade, who planted an organic vegetable garden where his front lawn had been. It went unnoticed for several months, but then the man who owned the rental property next door complained to the city authorities, who cited the Helvenstons for "failure to maintain ground cover on a property" and gave them a deadline to sort it.
Obviously the Orlando authorities have never seen my cucumber patch, which covers not only quite a lot of my ground, but is on its way to the neighbours' at the speed of Michael Schumacher. And, I have to say, it's a damned sight prettier that the lawn is at the moment. The cucumber has big, lush green leaves and gorgeous yellow flowers, while the lawn is sad, dry, patchy and half dead. No contest then.
Helvenston planted his food garden at the front of his house because it was sunnier than the back, and he's not the only American who's had a run-in with authorities for making that decision.
In the past couple of years several have run afoul of local officials for growing vegetables out front. The New York Times' list includes: