Victory! An Illinois City Lets Garden Grow

Many IJ campaigns involve decades of litigation, dozens of cases, and a string of incremental victories to transform the law in favor of freedom. And when one of those victories is threatened, we step in to make sure local governments can’t erode our progress. 

In 2013, IJ represented Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll when Miami Shores Village, Florida, banned front yard vegetable gardens. It allowed fruit, flowers, and flamingos—but not cabbage. Though the courts ultimately sided with the village, that fight helped spark a national movement. Now Florida, Arkansas, and Illinois have all passed right-to-garden bills based on IJ’s model.

Growing your own food on your own land is a basic right, and IJ will enforce our victories one garden at a time.

Laura Schaefer’s garden in Millstadt, Illinois, is the setting for our latest success.

Laura is a botany instructor who has spent more than five years turning a pair of neglected lots into a flourishing oasis of native plants and vegetables: “my health, my food, and my peace,” as she describes it. 

Her community admired it, but city officials did not. 

In May, Laura received a bright red citation accusing her garden of violating Millstadt’s ban on “high grass and weeds.” The officer gave her an ultimatum: Tear it out within seven days, or city workers would enter her property and do it themselves, billing her $40 an hour for the privilege.

But like every vegetable garden in the state of Illinois, Laura’s is protected by the IJ-inspired Vegetable Garden Protection Act. It forbids municipalities from regulating gardens out of existence. Millstadt’s weed ordinance, which specifically singles out vegetable growth for regulation, directly contravenes the plain text of the law that we helped establish. 

So IJ sent Millstadt officials a letter explaining that any enforcement action would violate the Garden Act. The city got the message after a burst of sympathetic press coverage. The mayor assured Laura that her garden was safe, and the citation was rescinded. 

Growing your own food on your own land is a basic right, and IJ will enforce our victories one garden at a time.

Christopher Ingraham is an IJ investigative reporter.