Scottdale garden grows legal battle

Phyllis Georgic and her boyfriend, Thomas Zeller, see the front yard of their Scottdale home as an oasis of organic gardening.

Borough officials see it as piles of rubbish and a safety hazard for nearby homes in the small Westmoreland County town.

Georgic and Zeller, both 57, bill themselves as holistic healers who live off the food they grow in their yard. That yard, which surrounds a small, two-story home, is covered with trash bags filled with leaves, tires, masonry materials and other objects they say are needed for their organic garden.

In December, they were cited and fined $600 by borough officials for violating a local rubbish ordinance.

"We feed ourselves. It's what you're supposed to do with your property. This is what everyone should be doing with their property," Georgic said Tuesday afternoon as she showed off her garden.

Zeller, who was not at home yesterday afternoon, is no stranger to court battles involving his home horticulture interests.

He served a one-to-two-year prison sentence in the late 1990s for growing marijuana plants in his Market Street home. During a three-day trial in 1997, Zeller maintained he grew the marijuana for medicinal purposes and said the Bible allowed him to do so.

During the trial, Zeller sucked on a large aloe plant for water and exercised in the back of the courtroom by tucking himself into a fetal position on the floor. Scottdale police arrested him in 1996 after they spotted through a skylight 11 marijuana plants growing in a window box inside the house.

During his sentencing hearing, Zeller put a curse on Westmoreland County Judge Gary Caruso.

"He tells people he is still the biggest marijuana grower in the county, but he actually doesn't grow it any more," Georgic said.

Now, 13 years later, Zeller is out of jail and living in the same Scottdale home with Georgic.

In the yard, plants are growing under what could be hundreds of deteriorating plastic trash bags and the remnants of last month's snowstorms. Onions, garlic, kale, Brussels sprouts, and other vegetables and herbs are in various stages of growth.

Georgic, who has lived at the home with Zeller for about eight years, insists their front yard is not a safety hazard.

"This is basically what we do for a living, make our garden grow," Georgic said.

Borough officials want the yard cleaned up.

Scottdale manager Barry Whoric said neighbors complained, prompting zoning enforcement officers to inspect the property and issue a citation.

"We received multiple complaints from neighbors, and they are not happy with it. At one time they had three or four bags piled high around the property," Whoric said.

Scottdale District Judge J. Bruce King in January found Zeller guilty of the summary citation. Zeller has since filed an appeal in Common Pleas Court.

His attorney, Jim Silvis, said the appeal will focus on Zeller's contention that trash bags and other items in the front yard are needed for gardening.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure. He can explain why what we see as trash can be used for gardening," Silvis said.

No date has been scheduled for the appeal.

Meanwhile, Zeller has another date before King to answer two more citations filed by borough code enforcement officials for the condition of the exterior of his house.

That hearing is scheduled for March 25.