Urban farmer Emi Do was forced into an early harvest after an anonymous neighbour complained about the two-metre-high Jerusalem artichokes at her Kerrisdale garden last month.

The offending tubers, grown on a city-owned boulevard that Do has cultivated for the past three years, were taller than the one metre allowed for plants in such spaces. A city of Vancouver bylaw officer issued a citation to the owner of the adjacent property. The owner asked Do to cut down the plants to avoid future trouble with the city.

“That neighbourhood has totally embraced urban farming,” said Do, who also runs the Yummy Yards urban farming cooperative that grows vegetables in Vancouver and Richmond. “There was one complaint and unfortunately, our system currently (dictates) that one complaint leads to action.”

The incident showcases what can sometimes happen in the normally bucolic pastime of gardening as the explosive growth of community gardens and urban farms in Vancouver continues. According to Coun. Andrea Reimer, the number of community garden plots on city, school and park board land has more than doubled to over 4,000 in 104 locations in the past four years. There are now at least 19 urban farms, including Yummy Yards. The city even allows its traffic circles to be used for food-growing, as long the plants don’t pose a traffic hazard.

There’s also a growing trend of commercial property developers temporarily turning over future development sites to non-profit organizations for short-term community gardens while they wait for market conditions to improve. In return, the developer’s land is reclassified by the B.C. Assessment Authority, which leads to significant reductions in taxes to the city.

Some land owners, such as Concord Pacific and London Drugs, have committed to give the difference in those taxes to the non-profits that run the temporary gardens on their properties.

In theory, turning urban spaces into farms and gardens would seem like a win for everyone. Dead spaces are greened, neighbours without gardens get to exercise their green thumbs, and urban farms create entry-level jobs and a ready source of local food for restaurants.

In practice, urban gardening can sometimes lead to conflict and angst. With perpetual complaints about theft of food, disputes over conditions of gardens and conflicts over commercial food plots, gardening can be a fractious affair.

“Yes, conflicts sometimes occur,” says Michael Levenston, executive director of CityFarmer, a Vancouver urban farming resource. “Conflict in community gardens isn’t unique because people will fight over all kinds of things.”

Years ago, a fight between property owners along East Boulevard in Kerrisdale and gardeners using the adjacent CPR right-of-way led to the development of policies for how community gardens should operate.

Now, the development of new urban farms — a reversal of the history of cities which once squeezed out small market farms as neighbourhoods expanded — has also created the need for new rules. No policies exist for how urban farms can operate. In Vancouver, there’s not even such a thing as a business licence for urban farms.