Question for those who live in an HOA (legal, problem, property)
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Here's a solution to the problem if you are stuck in a strict HOA community ruled with an iron fist like a communist dictatorship, and can't or don't want to move.
If you have the space inside your home or garage, you can setup a hydroponic grow room. You can grow a lot of plants inside your home or garage. When you grow with hydroponics, the plants grow faster, and bigger than if you use soil, and there is never any weeding. Growing with hydroponics is drastically less maintenance compared to traditional outdoor soil gardening. Growing with hydroponics is not expensive. You can start off small and ramp up to whatever scale you want. The hydroponic nutrients are not expensive, if you use the three part dry mix. The premixed liquid nutrients are very expensive. You can learn everything you need to know about hydroponic gardening by watching free YouTube videos.
If you grow plants indoors, you will need lighting. The greens can grow under cheap fluorescent or LED lighting. If you are growing fruiting plants, like peppers or tomatoes, then you need more expensive hydroponic lighting that closer matches the lighting intensity that you'd get outside in the sunshine. If you have to run lighting 16 hours a day, the cost can add up on a monthly basis.
If you live in a cold climate, you can grow with hydroponics in your basement all winter. In warmer climates or in the summers in the snow belt areas, you could grow on your deck if you have a deck but don't have a yard.
It's possible to automate hydroponic growing, so you can be away from your garden for months, without any concern about watering plants. There are about seven or different methods how you can grow hydroponically. Again, you can start very small, and scale up. Starting small is growing one lettuce plant in a one gallon plastic milk jug. After you set up the plant to grow in the one gallon plastic jug, you do zero work. You simply wait for the harvest time. You can harvest that lettuce plant three times.
Hydroponics can be scaled up to giant warehouse type greenhouses larger than many football fields in size. There are YouTube videos of those large scale hydroponic operations. When you are inside those giant greenhouses, you cannot see the perimeters of the giant green houses!
If you need help starting with hydroponics, I can help you get started.
If you're going to go to that effort, just grow weed. You'll forget all about the vegetables. Stock up on cookies and M&Ms.
If you're going to go to that effort, just grow weed. You'll forget all about the vegetables. Stock up on cookies and M&Ms.
That's true that the huge interest in hydroponics today is to grow illegal (in most states) crops. But if you grow illegal crops, you need to be concerned with being arrested and imprisoned for years, if you are caught by law enforcement. If you are growing illegal crops to sell, then you have to deal with people that are criminals and have no morality at all. You then have to watch your back so you are not beaten or killed and be willing to kill anyone at any time. Just watch the series "Breaking Bad" series to know how that part of society lives their lives.
Many people grow legal crops with hydroponics, and it is an alternative to gardening if you are trapped in a strict HOA, or even live in an apartment, provided you have enough room to grow hydroponically and it is not forbidden by the apartment complex.
You can try growing hydroponically on a very small scale to find out of you like growing with hydroponics. Hydroponic gardening could turn into a hobby and has the potential to grow a lot of food with a lot less effort than traditional soil gardening.
That's true that the huge interest in hydroponics today is to grow illegal (in most states) crops. But if you grow illegal crops, you need to be concerned with being arrested and imprisoned for years, if you are caught by law enforcement. If you are growing illegal crops to sell, then you have to deal with people that are criminals and have no morality at all. You then have to watch your back so you are not beaten or killed and be willing to kill anyone at any time. Just watch the series "Breaking Bad" series to know how that part of society lives their lives.
Many people grow legal crops with hydroponics, and it is an alternative to gardening if you are trapped in a strict HOA, or even live in an apartment, provided you have enough room to grow hydroponically and it is not forbidden by the apartment complex.
You can try growing hydroponically on a very small scale to find out of you like growing with hydroponics. Hydroponic gardening could turn into a hobby and has the potential to grow a lot of food with a lot less effort than traditional soil gardening.
No kidding. It was a joke. It brought to mind the episode in the TV show Weeds when she begins to grow her own hydroponically.
But it is a good suggestion and interesting information.
That's true that the huge interest in hydroponics today is to grow illegal (in most states) crops. But if you grow illegal crops, you need to be concerned with being arrested and imprisoned for years, if you are caught by law enforcement. If you are growing illegal crops to sell, then you have to deal with people that are criminals and have no morality at all. You then have to watch your back so you are not beaten or killed and be willing to kill anyone at any time. Just watch the series "Breaking Bad" series to know how that part of society lives their lives.
Many people grow legal crops with hydroponics, and it is an alternative to gardening if you are trapped in a strict HOA, or even live in an apartment, provided you have enough room to grow hydroponically and it is not forbidden by the apartment complex.
You can try growing hydroponically on a very small scale to find out of you like growing with hydroponics. Hydroponic gardening could turn into a hobby and has the potential to grow a lot of food with a lot less effort than traditional soil gardening.
I think LE is a bit more concerned with other things then looking for that single pot plant growing in your back yard.
I understand that point of view (even though I myself would never want to live in an HOA), BUT my post is about HOAs -- especially over-55 HOAs -- temporarily relaxing their usual rules in order to help the residents cope with this extraordinary (and extraordinarily dangerous) situation.
Just like many utilities, banks, credit cards, etc are temporarily suspending service shutoffs, late fees, etc etc. Obviously things will go back to what used to be normal at some point in the future; everyone realizes that.
It just seems to me that giving older adults, who are acknowledged as being more at risk for complications and death from COVID than other segments of the population, an option to temporarily grow fresh produce in their single-family-home backyards if they wish to, would be a sensible and also a caring thing for HOAs to do.
Hopefully by the time they plant and grow anything, this crisis will be over. If not, we could be in deep $hit and a few fresh veggies will not help.
What one pair of disgruntled residents decide they want because they refuse to consider other reasonable actions does not justify changing an entire set of covenants for an entire community...that are also largely long term property value in nature. One person's Victory Garden is another's weed patch. My BS meter is twitching...why do I suspect these residents have always chafed against the veggie garden prohibition and simply see the "pandemic" as a convenient excuse to press the point? The HOA may not even have the authority to set covenants aside in the first place. Many convey with property ownership...all the HOA does is enforce or fund improvement projects.
I have lived in 5 HOA's and I am on the BOD of my present association. When one joins an association they do agree to abide by the Covenants, Bylaws, and Rules & Regulations. Are they surrendering some of their rights? Yes they are, but they agreed to do so. If one did not understand what rights, shame on them for not reading all the documentation.
We live in a condo with HOA. HOA, all good people, is fairly closed to any ideas not invented by them. But, on the plus side, they deal with a bunch of stuff we'd not want to deal with. And, there are a lot of irresponsible owners/tenants doing completely stupid and inconsiderate things.
So, it is a trade-off, and you need to take good with bad.
Husband and I operated a janitorial company that worked exclusively in HOAs. It was a great job, all days. We had a preapproved list of duties, when and how they were completed. No matter what people wasnted us to do more, and the boards backed us up.
I remember the one woman who rented, ended up getting evicted for non payment, who went to the board to complain I wasn't cleaning her unit. She thought I should do that.
And yes -- I swear every building had 2-3 owners who felt they were above the rules or the rules were stupid and didn't apply to them. And rule changes were always met with lots of resistance.
Where I live there are a lot of choices of places to live. You don't have to live in an HOA. I do not understand why people who don't like the HOA lifestyle live in one, and live an irritated life. I know these people, because every time I see one all they do moan about the HOA.
And most of the rules in an HOA aren't off kilter. Nothing like Tuesday is taco nights and you have to wear red, and we'll be putting cameras in your home to make sure you're following this rule.
I have lived in 5 HOA's and I am on the BOD of my present association. When one joins an association they do agree to abide by the Covenants, Bylaws, and Rules & Regulations. Are they surrendering some of their rights? Yes they are, but they agreed to do so. If one did not understand what rights, shame on them for not reading all the documentation.
She already said she has no beef with HOAs but is wondering if anyone has heard of HOA's bending their rules under crisis conditions. Her friends had read and agreed to all the rules/regs prior to the onset of COVID-19, but now that they're having difficulty getting to the store, they wonder if exceptions can be made temporarily.
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Solly says — Be nice!
