Pellerin: Vegetables on the verge — Ottawa may finally loosen its rules

Who doesn’t want to grow a few cherry tomatoes? GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTOArticle content

We’re not halfway through this federal election campaign but what with the endless waves of liberation tariffs and other threatening messages coming from the White House it really feels like we need a little break and to touch grass, like the kids say. Vegetables, too. And flowers.

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Call it the victory of Ottawa’s verge gardeners.

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A verge, you see, is the narrow strip of land between the sidewalk and the curb in front of many homes. This space also goes by other names, such as grass strip, nature strip, park strip — you get the idea. It’s the strip of land close to the street in front of your house. Under the hilarious new coat of April snow earlier this week. Aren’t you already feeling better? Calmer? Gardening does that.

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Well, it does for most normal people. For those who, like me, have a brown thumb of death, it’s best not to get our knuckles too deep into the dirt lest we inadvertently poison it. My contribution to gardening mostly consists of encouraging others to do more of it (an approach I’ve adopted for cooking as well. Not that I kill food; mostly because it’s already dead. If the trade wars get much worse, maybe I’ll treat you to my kitchen tales).

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In the meantime, let’s dig in. And note, in passing, that in addition to liberalizing the use of garden-worthy patches of land near streets, the City of Ottawa is also willing to reform its use of road salt after Ecology Ottawa raised concerns about it.

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Apparently we’re using more salt in Ottawa than other cities do, which is a problem for our waterways. I’m no scientist, but this much salt is probably not optimal for gardening either. Especially as other solutions exist that aren’t as damaging, including beet juice.

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I love beets! I wish I could grow them. Or anything. But on to our topic.

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Not everyone has a verge in front of their house but everyone has some space at the edge of their front yard that’s part of the city’s right-of-way boulevard, confusingly named since it’s a strip of land, not asphalt (bear with me as I weed semantics out of this otherwise relaxing and delightfully therapeutic column).

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For many years in Ottawa, you could not do much of anything with that strip of land at the outside edge of your yard that the city owns. In fact, you’ve been obliged to maintain it on behalf of the city even though you don’t own it. Certainly you weren’t allowed to make it pretty by planting flowers or — gasp! — vegetables.

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Some people wantonly defied the “Use and Care of Roads Bylaw” that said these things by planting pretty flowers near the sidewalk. Can you imagine how much of a ruffian you have to be to do that? This is reminiscent of the hooligans who install little free libraries in front of their home.

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Neighbours predictably complained, gardeners dug in (as it were), councillors got involved, news stories were written — at some point the city cried uncle and updated the bylaw to permit daisies. That was in 2023. The updated rules prohibit very tall plants for visibility and safety reasons and noxious weeds for obvious reasons. Gardeners are also obliged to keep sidewalks clear and clean.