This is why I bought an older house in a neighborhood without an HOA. Sometimes when the neighborhood is completely built/all lots are sold, they will relax the standards but often you are at their mercy. The bigger issue is that most neighborhoods have a deer problem (if they don't today, they will tomorrow) and the HOA's only allow 4 foot decorative fencing which will not keep out deer. So my solution was to live in a junky-er neighborhood where the lots are bigger but there are no rules and no one is telling me what color I can paint my mailbox.

Oh brother ! That was one of the things our POA also restricted. You'll find that you can plant vegetables all over the yard intersperced with the shrubs in your typical landscaped beds. All a matter of creative disguising. My biggest problem was keeping the yard crew out of the beds. The trick is to buy a house with the right sun orientation to those back yard foundation beds so you can tuck in tomatoes, peppers and other sun-needy veg. plants.

Always keep in mind that in 5 or more years, what was sunny could become quite shady as todays new tree plantings take off and grow like crazy in your neighbor's yard.

Your HOA is right to restrict the typical back yard garden that tears up a patch of perfectly respectable sod to plant and fence around a 'project' they are certain you will give up on and let go to weed. It happens too often and preventative restrictions are the only way to deal with it.

To them (HOA's and POA's ) and many neighbors, your garden may look an eyesore when we gardeners know that the soil is just resting fallow until next planting season.

I tucked beets between daylily plants right in the front yard. Redleaf lettuces between coleus plants in the front foundation bed. Tomatoes and peppers grew nicely among the roses and boxwood foundation plantings. Nice fancy urn planters are great for concealing carrots among the decorative bloomers.