Elzey Street resident plants donated peppers and other vegetables, an easement outside her home for anyone to enjoy FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — First, she got all the neighbors on board. Then, she made an announcement on NextDoor.
By the middle of Monday afternoon, more than 3,600 people gave her a smiley face or a heart emoji. The commenters had nothing but praise and blessings.
“I feel like (I) just committed the highest form of anarchy,” landscaper Crystal Parsons wrote after she and her partner, Steve Plys, planted the curbside easement outside their home with vegetables – peppers, radishes, carrots and peas. “I planted multiple varieties of tomatoes, bell peppers and hot peppers … If you want any of these this summer, please come by and pick as many as you want! Even if the tomatoes are green.”
The Elzey Street resident wrote that by planting in the curbside easement, she knew she was taking a risk, “but it’s worth it!”
The curbside garden is an extension of what’s already been planted in the yard in front of their home, an extension of the couple’s sustainable philosophy.
“We were tired of mowing our grass,” Parsons explained. “We took a sidecutter, took up all the grass and put down some mulch.” With vegetable plants her neighbor gave her, it seemed like a good idea.
“I thought to myself. Why not just plant that?” Parsons said. A lot of people who can’t handle planting – time, patience, that sort of thing, are more than welcome to come by and pick what they want.
“If you look at the stats, people who live in areas with plants and vegetable gardens and the diversity that nature gives us, crime rates go down and people become more successful with the things they put their focus on,” Parsons said. “It’s not as hard as it seems.”
Her eight-year-old daughter, Chloe Gesell, pitches in along with the neighbor boys across the street, Isaac and Joseph Tyree and Andrew Allen-Tyree. Their favorite job right now is picking strawberries from the patch in the front garden.
“I guess we’re making a food forest,” Parsons said. There’s a peach tree that is part of the “micro-climate” where “everything will benefit from each other.”
Parsons is one of those who wants to see the American lawn disappear. Rip it up, she says, and plant microclover, a plant that produces nitrogen that feeds other surrounding plants.
“In the 60s, 70s, lawns really became a thing. Little did we know, it’s horrible for the environment,” she said, including the fossil fuels needed to mow the lawn and the pesticides used to control dandelions and other weeds.
“Global warming is not just about planting trees. We have to create these microclimates and cover the earth with things that are healthy, and you don’t have to fertilize,” she said.She couldn’t find a movement online for planting curbside gardens in city easements, except for a mention in California. Most of the activity appears to be flowers. WANE 15 reached out to a writer for Black Gold who documented a curbside garden in Portland, Oregon that inspired neighbors to do the same, resulting in gardens as varied as nature itself. As of Monday, the website has not responded.
Plys searched on the city website for specific regulations on planting in easements and came away feeling fairly confident that if nothing reached four feet in height, their garden is safe.
An email was sent to a city official for a comment or direction, but to be fair, city offices are closed Monday for Juneteenth. Maybe those city officials are gardening.
Poster Comment:
Waynedale is SE FW out by the airport. Sling Blade lives out there.