Help thirsty plants!

Is your New Year's Resolution to help out the Garden Posse, or commit random acts of kindness and generosity? If so, get an early start on 2009 by a couple of hours! Our 5 gallon watering jug at the 34th street garden (across from Salvation Pizza) was stolen during the past week. As a result, the plants are looking very thirsty. The garden would much appreciate a new watering jug!

Empty 5 gallon jugs sell for $14 at Wheatsville, and although we got some for $6 at HEB, I have checked with the HEBs on 41st and Burnet and they only sell full jugs. (The one on South Congress might still sell them - that's where the stolen jug came from.)

Or, it would be awesome if you had one or more extra jugs around that you wanted to donate. We will certainly need them as we create more gardens. Just drop them off at the garden, or to be safe, behind Salvation Pizza. We have permission to stash a jug there.

Email gardenposse@gmail.com if you can help today (12/31), or would like to make future contributions of gardening goods.

Twenty Seven--Whoa!

Hello, Posse! I know everyone has missed me terribly these last few weeks that I've been so conspicuously absent. Don't blame yourselves, posse. Blame the allure of Minnesota in winter and then blame the cold I picked up there. At any rate, I am having a birthday party this coming Monday and would love to see your bright faces there. I will be making a borscht, which is much like a vegetable garden in soup form. Party starts at 7! Email emclaire.tx@gmail.com for directions!

So much news: Garden Posse 2009!

The holidays are nearly upon us. The Posse will be taking a two week break. But we have so much news to share with you now. Consider it something low-fat to chew on over the holidays.

FIRST:
The next meeting of the Garden Posse will be a potluck at Greg & Carly's house, at 7:30 pm, on January 6. If you have been considering getting involved with the Garden Posse, or you have been involved in the past and would like to be back in the thick of things, come to this event! Reasons why:

• Delicious food + nice people = good times
  
• We'll be formulating our vision for 2009 & beyond.
  

In other words, we'll be getting introspective about who we are as a group, and what we want to accomplish. We've had discussions about why we guerrilla garden: ideas of land use, local food systems, permaculture, and community-building have come up. Our goal is direct our energy into projects that will help the Posse further the ideals important to us, and to be useful to our community.

So look inside your heart (for real) and ask yourself: What does guerrilla gardening mean to me? Then come with a dish and your ideas to the potluck.

SECOND:

A few members of the Garden Posse presented a plaque to Shoal Creek Nursery on Thursday, thanking them for being amazing to us. (They really, really are.) I didn't bring my camera, but the presentation looked kind of like this:


THIRD:

The Garden Posse now has a Facebook group! Heck, it's almost 2009, we figured it was time to get fully integrated with the social networking. JOIN US! You don't have to be an active member of the Posse to be in the group. We would really love to see everyone who is interested in our efforts. We'll also be using it to send out event invitations, etc.

FOURTH:

Events like the screening of the Garden Posse documentary in January! Katy is finishing up "the director's cut." We'll be having a screening and a party. Details are still in the works. But there is going to be film, music, fun, and beer involved; that much is certain.

FIFTH:

Hey, do you feel like building a website for the Garden Posse? Email gardenposse@gmail.com.

SIXTH:

Happy holidays and see you next year!

Photos galore:

More pictures straight from the Chestnut Garden... now with 100% more additional daylight!

Thanks for all that helped out. This garden has lots of room to grow, so look for more pictures from it in the future.

Cheers,

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

The Chestnut Garden is the coldest garden. Interrupted last week by snow (!), Tuesday's mission was a chilly 35 degrees. The Posse showed up to the site bundled thickly in coats, hats, mittens, and wool socks. The cold would have scared off lesser Texans. But the Garden Posse is nothing if not totally hardcore.

Last week, our group had spaced out the dimensions of the garden before it started to snow (!). On the weekend, Greg and his neighborhood friends prepared the bed. So all we had to do was put the plants in the ground. We had a mix of vegetables (leafy greens, broccoli, and cabbage), and pansies. A million continuing thanks to Shoal Creek Nursery!

We also planted a vine that will crawl up the very large, cool, and dead tree, which you can see behind McAllen here.

We were joined by Jessica, one of those extremely nice people who knows everything about all the free stuff that the city has to offer (glass mulch! random dumps of wood mulch!).

Here Carly demonstrates the use of our new Cobrahead ("The Best Tool on Earth!"). It looks a bit like a pirate hook, and is scarily effective at pulling up grass, weeds, dirt, and what have you. It was donated to us by Geoff Valdes.

I'm not skilled at taking photos at night, but you get the gist of our wide spread of veggies and pansies. (Greg said he will eventually post better pictures with daylight.) We're getting the water from a neighbor across the street, and more neighbors have offered to be caretakers for the garden. There is a lot more space in the field beyond the garden and bus stop - hopefully, it will continue to grow.

After the successful planting, and sufficient freezing of extremities, the Posse retreated to Clementine's for warm drinks and music.



So that's it for guerrilla gardening in 2008. Hurrah for a successful year for the Garden Posse! Having begun our mission only four months ago, I'm amazed at the work we've done and the energy we've amassed. The Garden Posse will be even stronger and more exciting in 2009 - stay tuned! I'll be posting an update on beginning of the year plans soon.

Chestnut Garden... Redux!

Tomorrow we will be going back to the Chestnut Garden to finish planting it. On last Saturday, a couple of us stopped by to pull up the rest of the grass and put down some potting soil, so our little plot is all ready to go... just need to add the green plants.

Tomorrow night is supposed to be pretty cold, so make sure to bundle up before coming out to help plant. We are meeting tomorrow, December 16th at 7:30pm at the corner of 16th and Chestnut, in East Austin. Bring gloves and trowels, as well as lots of plants.


The planting shouldn't take all that long, so afterwards we could hop off to get some hot chocolate or other warm beverages. Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Cheers.

Snowed out?!

Well, we were all ready to do some digging... tools, soil, plants, and hands on deck... but it seemed that Mother Nature had other ideas about us starting the Chestnut Garden last night. Although we were able to lay out the boundaries for the garden and start pulling up some grass, a cold front came roaring through and we had to postpone our work to another night. Not just any ole cold front mind you, but one that brought snow to Central Texas. It must surely be the holiday season now.

So since the Holiday Season is quite busy for a lot of people, we are going to try again and finish the Chestnut Garden next Tuesday. That way, the week of Christmas can be a light week (potluck and sign painting anyone?) and everyone can rest and relax. To help speed along the process of getting the garden prepared, I'm going to work on it this coming Saturday morning. I'm thinking that if we can remove the rest of the grass and turn in some potting soil, all that will remain to be done next Tuesday is the fun part, putting in the plants. If anyone can help out on Saturday morning, we'd appreciate it and I'm sure things will move a lot quicker. And by morning, I mean around 10:30.

Also, I know that the Chestnut Neighborhood Association is having a tree planting event of their own on Saturday morning. They are going to be planting trees in their park, which is conveniently located just across the street from our garden. I'm going to see if any of them would like to help us out as well, since this Chestnut Garden is really going in for them.

Now if only we had some winter gear from Colombia of our own, since it's been snowing and all...

Tonights Garden

Hey all,

I am not going to attend tonight's dig. My father will be in town for the night so I am going to grab some drinks with him and discuss Christmas presents for the fam.

I do have some broccoli and cabbage plants for the garden tonight. I salvaged them when I was thinning my own garden, and have been growing them in 4-inchers to one day put in one of our gardens. I think they are ready. Can someone get them from my house or meet me somewhere? It is 4 cabbages and 2 broccolis, and I CAN NOT say they are spectacular specimens.

My phone is dead, so email me at tgallo@wildflower.org and we can arrange something.

Travis

Updates: Quilombo potluck, GP media, donations!

• The Quilombo potluck will be held at 1:30 pm Saturday, at the garden. Come, and bring some food with you! It would be wonderful to see some Garden Posse faces there, and anyone else who wants to hang out. Here are basic directions:

If you are coming from downtown or by bike: Go East on 12th street until it dead ends at Webberville. Go
Left on Webberville. Take a Right on Fort Branch. You'll come to a "Y". At this point go Left/straight onto Delano. Go through the stop sign at Delano and Hudson and down the hill. At the next stop sign make a Left on Harold Court and we are at the end.

• The article about the Garden Posse is in the Daily Texan today! You can read it here, online. Thanks to Amira for taking an interest in our group.

• Geoff Valdes of CobraHead has offered to donate few of his tools to us! The CobraHead "weeds, cultivates, scalps, edges, digs, furrows, plants, transplants, de-thatches, and harvests with ease." Yeah, we could use that. Hooray for kindness and generosity!

Hope to see you this weekend,
Lindsay

Guerrilla gardening goes commercial

This past Tuesday, before we started making signs, Travis was surprised to see guerrilla gardening featured between segments of the Colbert Report. Courtesy of Columbia Outerwear:



This guerrilla gardening ad is part of Columbia's "Pioneers" ad campaign. Apparently, guerrilla gardeners wear Columbia's "Chill Dude TM" shirt, Pagora sneakers, and Omni-Dry Silver RidgeTM cargo shorts. True, that is the Posse's standard uniform.

At first, I thought that Columbia had cast a bunch of commercial actors to pretend to be guerrilla gardeners. But the people in the ad are actual, real, live guerrilla gardeners, in Los Angeles. (Living in LA, they might be commercial actors as well.) Check out the long version:



Columbia is not exactly being original. Adidas did a guerrilla gardening campaign, for their Grun shoes, which supposedly use fewer resources. Here's the ad:



Richard Reynolds, founder of guerrillagardening.org, had been approached by Adidas to help them with the short film. He commented on a blog, "It was a load of glossy fakery and I said “NO WAY”. He went on,

Look closely though, not only are they all wearing Adidas, but they’ve magically planted full grown sunflowers and fruiting trees and stuffed everything together as if it was a flower arrangement in a Hello home. This is horticultural nonsense, it’s guerrilla gardening as a makeover TV show … and it’s quite likely the plants are plastic.

So has guerrilla gardening gone "mainstream" yet? Or do you think that these guerrilla gardeners featured in the ad have sold out? And is that a bad thing? Why do you think these brands want to associate themselves with guerrilla gardening?

I'd love to hear what you think in the comments.

Just to make sure...

I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't any possible confusion: I've already scouted out a place for the new garden and already posted the info about it. I snuck my entry in sooner than expected and I don't want anyone to miss the information about where the next garden will be.

For the information about our next garden spot on Tuesday, make sure to read the blog entry posted before the entry about the signs we painted.

Cheers,

Greg

PS... and of course do read the entry about the signs too... I hear there is a mighty fine looking piece of first-place-winning, garden art somewhere in the story...

Signage and more!

Sign mission accomplished!



Pictured are two out of three signs created last night on the floor of Travis' house. Greg, the artist behind the bottom sign, won the contest for prettiest sign. True, sign-making wasn't a competition, but it became one when someone raises the artistic bar like that.

These signs, and the Travis/McAllen collaboration on the Raywood Street sign, will be placed at their respective locations.

Next week we'll be back to digging!! Greg is, perhaps at this very moment, scouting a new site at a park near his home on East MLK. More details as they emerge.

But don't wait until Tuesday to get into gardening! There's lots of stuff going on this weekend. Saturday kicks off "Eat Local" week with the first-ever Austin Urban Farm Bike Tour. Although Megan's wonderful East Side garden, Quilombo, is not an official stop, it is included. She'll be organizing a potluck for the early afternoon. Come join us!

Greg is doing a tree-planting thing at the park near his house, and he'd earlier put out a call for volunteers. There may be free coffee involved? Contact Greg for details.

Plus, it is pretty much time to buy your holiday gifts. Stop procrastinating! I know you're doing it. Buying local is like eating local: It's good for you, trust us. The Blue Genie Art Bazaar opens this weekend, and Wheatsville Co-op's art fair is this weekend in Adams Park. Whoa! Buy local where you eat local! It's almost too much.

One more thing: On Friday, pick up a copy of the Daily Texan and turn to DT Weekend. There will be an article about us! Yay, Garden Posse.

New garden site: Chestnut Garden

Hi Y'all,

So it's time to break ground on a new garden and at last Tuesday's sign making, we decided to do a garden in the Chestnut Neighborhood, out in East Austin. I've scouted around and I found a great little location by Chestnut's neighborhood park. It's a vacant corner lot which happens to have a bus stop on it as well.


And right across the street is the park!


So the plan is to meet at 7:30pm next Tuesday, December 9th at the garden site, which is on the corner of E 16th St and Chestnut.


View Larger Map

As usual, bring shovels, gloves, and other gardening tools, as well as head-lamps or flashlights. For plants... everything you've got, although do keep in mind that cold weather is setting in and we want our plants to make it through the winter. Also, the site has a large dead tree on it that would be perfect for climbers, so bring climbing plants if you have any.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I know I sure did. Since it's that time of year again, we want to send out our thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Garden Posse. A shout-out to all that have donated their plants, time, and effort.

Looking forward to seeing everyone next Tuesday. Cheers!

Making signs tonight!

Our update for tonight is coming a bit later than usual. The reason is, four day weekends tend to set you back... into a realm where all you want to do is nap and eat, not necessarily in that order.

But anyhow. Ahem. Last week at our delicious potluck (thanks, Travis) we decided that we would spend this week making signs for our gardens. I believe we've mentioned the usefulness of explanatory signs previously in this blog. But an example:

The other day I was watering the garden on 34th & Guadelupe, and a young woman was walking on the path through it. She stopped and told me she liked the garden, and because she walked that way to work, she always watched its development and wondered what was going to happen next. I told her she was free to take any of the goods from the garden (a few more tomatoes are red now), if she took a moment to weed or water.

Just think: A sign could have provided the woman all that information before she happened to run in to me watering. This is what written language is for.

Sign making is tonight, 7:30 pm, again at Travis' house at 800 Post Oak Rd, where he will provide you with a handwritten voucher so your car doesn't get a ticket on his heavily policed road.

Please bring these materials if you have them:

Wood boards
Saw, nails
Paint & paintbrushes
Other decorative touches

Also, let's plan to get back to gardening next week. Please come with ideas for new sites!

Potluck, Tues.

So, lets kick it off at 7:30pm in order to keep the same schedule. I am going to make a big crock-pot of vegger chili, so everyone else bring a side, dessert, beer or wine. Please leave a comment with what you are bringing, so that we can keep track and we do not end up with 3 pies, 5 sides and no booze or any other combination of that. My address is 800 Post Oak, ATX, and feel free to bring a guest. Also, if you would please RSVP so that I know how much chili to make, I don't want to make to little.

FYI...drove by the bus stop garden today and it looks great. The little pathetic lettuce plant is starting to perk up, the beans are starting to sprout around the sign, and the rest of the plants are still alive. I will try to swing out there this week during the day and take some pictures.

See you all Tuesday!

Cheers,
TG

Chronicle of this week's dig

This past Tuesday, we met again at our first garden for a much needed rehaul. It was out with the old, in with the new - the new being a generous number of leafy lettuces, broccoli, chard, and herbs like cilantro, parsley, sage, dill, and rue.

We also planted a few more flowers. Here, a new GP'er makes his legacy with a butterfly weed.

Erin donated a couple of pea seeds, which we planted to climb up the fence.


Rarely seen on film, our documentarian, Katy, gets some action shots.


We were pleased that a few "friends of the Posse," who hadn't previously attended a dig, came to help out.

The garden was pretty pleased about the new compost. The plants actually sang as they were watered (I swear).

And purely for aesthetics, we added a rock border around both the flower and the vegetable beds. It makes it look a lot cleaner.

Our constant visitor during this whole process was a small cat who kept running across the street while cars were coming. "No, kitty!" we cried. The drivers would look at us like we were responsible for this not-so-wise creature. I think it's been adopted by the restaurants across the street and given the affectionate name of "Lunchmeat."


Here's a group shot of the Garden Posse after a satisfying dig.

Thanks to Erin for taking the photos, thanks always to Sam and Shoal Creek Nursery for providing the plants and soil, and thanks to everyone who showed up! A good time was had by all.

Next week, more good times (with food!) will be had at Travis' house in South Austin. Travis will be providing details soon.

Sweet dreams

I'll post the story of this week's dig later today, but in the meantime, here's a treat. It's a short film with a moral about vegetables. A vegetable fable, if you will. Take a look.


"Sweet Dreams" (2007) from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

34 & Guadelupe: Redux

Tomorrow night, at 7:30 pm, we'll be back where it all began: The garden at 34th & Guadelupe, across from Salvation Pizza.

This garden needs some sprucing up. We'll be cleaning up the trash that has accumulated around the garden (exciting, I know, but necessary), weeding the flowers (which are really doing quite well), and replanting the vegetable garden with new winter transplants and seeds. I am especially excited about a climbing spinach plant I found last week.

The area could also use a sign, informing people about what the garden is and how to use it. From my experience taking care of the garden for the past two months, it could have much more potential for the community if explained, and maybe people would stop dropping their trash and SAT prep books there.

Also, we'll be joined by a student journalist from UT who is writing a story about guerrilla gardening for the Daily Texan. And don't forget - there is beer and pizza across the street!

Hope to see you there.

Last night, while we waited for the bus

We planted a bus stop guerrilla garden.

The site is located at Raywood and Locke, not Weathers. It's near the heart of South Austin, which is a strong proponent of "Keeping Austin Weird" with its eccentric local shops, houses, and culture. But this neighborhood was quiet, and I have to say, drab. Wide, barren lawns, and squat brick houses surrounded the bus stop. It needed a garden. Both to provide some visual interest, and plant the seed of the idea that those wide lawns are good for more than grass.

The Garden Posse showed up with the soil, compost, plants, tools, and manpower to do the job.


We took a half hour or so to plan where the garden would go, in a way that didn't interfere with the bus or the riders.

The garden ended up being a relatively small area between the garbage can and the sewer pipes, broken in two by the sidewalk.


Pickaxes and pitchforks are most useful for pulling up grass. Then mixing in the good-quality dirt and compost. And then planting! All our organic materials were donated by Shoal Creek Nursery. A million thanks!


Travis admires the garden from the ground level, next to the vine that will curl around the garbage can and hopefully not get hacked down.



We had a posse of eight, and this garden was completed in less than two hours!



We were at a loss. What to do next week? We've devoted 3 weeks in our schedule to a garden that only required one night. So we decided to return next Tuesday to the garden at 34 & Guadelupe. It needs a vegetable facelift, especially with rumors of a frost coming up.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this dig, and see you next week!

Guerrilla gardening tonight

Thanks to everyone who voted on the poll. By a narrow margin, Option 5 is the winner of a new guerrilla garden!

We'll meet at the corner of Raywood & Weathers in South Austin at 7:30 pm tonight. Here's a map.


View Larger Map


We'll have a supply of flowers, veggies, dirt, and compost, but as always, donations are welcome.

Please bring whatever tools you have. Shovels, trowels, and pickaxes are most useful. Also, bring gardening gloves and a headlamp or flashlight if you have them. They make gardening in the dark a whole lot easier!

See you then,
Lindsay

Requiem for the East Side triangle garden

Yesterday Megan called me with some not-so-pleasant news: Someone ran over the East Side garden. With their truck.

I haven't seen the scene, so I can't really describe what it looked like (perhaps a witness can chime in in the comments?). Apparently the lemon tree is still okay, and part of the garden is still intact. But there was some wreckage.

We think it was an accident, because 1) who would want to ruin their truck by running over a garden, and 2) it's a neighborhood where it's not unusual for people to get drunk and drive recklessly. And 3) I don't like to imagine that we live in a world where people would destroy our garden on purpose.

Megan talked to some of the neighbors, who were sad about the garden. We were going to ask you all to come out and help clean it up, but last night Megan was up late and rallied a bunch of neighborhood people who were also up late to clean it up with her. They also painted the street. It was a crazy time, Megan said, and people had fun.

So, we'll talk more about this tomorrow, when we gather for the South Austin dig. Other things to mention:
- One day left to vote on the S. Austin site poll
- We have pansies left over from last week that Megan would like to plant in front of a small church on the East Side she's been attending. Let her know if you are interested in participating.
- I'd like to replant the 34th & Guadelupe garden. The flowers (especially the orange cosmos) are looking great, but the veggies and herbs are looking like they need a face lift. Perhaps on Thursday?

Please discuss in the comments, and also respond if you'll be attending the dig tomorrow. We'll need you to bring tools and headlamps/flashlights.

Thanks!

Potential bus stop sites

So here are some bus stops that I found around the area of South 5th street.

OPTION 1

This one is near a house, but shouldn't be a problem planting. I didn't see a dog in the yard, so I don't think we would make a ruckus.

OPTION 2


This one is across the street from the previous. It is a bit closer to this person's yard and may feel a bit like we are in their yard even though we are technically on the other side of their fence.

OPTION 3
This one has no bench, but my friend who lives near this stop says it is noticeably the most used stop in this area. The neighbors have a dog, but I think I would feel comfortable asking if they cared.

OPTION 5

This is actually Section 8 housing in the background, so that could be something nice for them. Again no bench. Don't think we would need to ask permission for this site.

OPTION 6


These are not bus stops, but just thought they could turn into cool gardens. This sits on the side hill of the Elk's lodge, in a pretty wealthy street, so I have mixed feelings about this site.

Take your pick! Sorry, it took so long.

TG

Tonight's project: Flowershoes

Just a quick update note: Tonight we'll be planting pansies in old shoes. Then you can take your shoe(s) and distribute them, or keep them, as you see fit.

We have shoes and pansies and dirt, but we still need some materials. Please bring if you have:

SMALL ROCKS OR PEBBLES
A DRILL
IF NOT A DRILL, HAMMER AND NAILS

This is for drainage's sake. We don't want some stinky shoes! Here's a link to the project, from Instructables.

see you tonight!

P.S. By unanimous vote, the Garden Posse has endorsed Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I'll call the campaign and let them know. Good luck voting today, if you haven't already.

Election watching party!

Hey everyone, sorry I am writing last minute, I have been a pretty lame soldier the last few weeks. Anywho, I am having a party tomorrow night as Lindsey already told you. So, here are the details. We will be starting around 7ish, when the polls here in TX close, so come whenever you would like. Bring a snack, if you wish, and a drinking cup. I am getting a little pony keg of beer for everyone, and you are more than welcome to bring more beer, spirits, or some wine, maybe champagne for celebrating (or drowning tears). Oh, MOST IMPORTANTLY, bring a lawnchair. We are going to move our TV outside and hang out in the front yard.

There will be 20 or so people there, and you all can definitly work on a project, but I may need to play host a bit and may not be able to devote my full attention.

My address is 800 Post Oak St., ATX, 78704, so google it.

Any questions, please call me 940.367.0741.

Travis

Unrelated photo of a large zucchini

Look!

This 2-pound monster was discovered in my non-guerrilla, front-yard garden this morning. And I'm excited when things are get larger than they should be.

In other zucchini news, there are quite a few in development in the garden at 34 & Guad. I think they're the opposite of the above zucchini - they've been about 4 inches long for the past two weeks, blooming every day. Any ideas?

And in pictures: Carly and Megan making the sign last week.

New news

This morning, I've got a couple of pieces of information that I'd like to share with y'all.

1. On Tuesday, we met at Megan's house to paint the sign. After having 15 people respond to the poll, we had a disappointing turnout (not that the people who did turn out weren't wonderful). I'd like to institute a policy of RSVPing on the comments in the blog to tell us if you'll be able to come. It's best if we know Tuesday morning if you'll show (I'll try to post and email earlier). Megan and Carly had made food, and food is best if eaten by many people when the effort is made.

2. Katy, who you may have noticed shows up with a large camera and audio equipment to meetings, has two weeks left of filming on the documentary she's making about the Garden Posse. Let's try to give her some good footage by doing stuff! Like planting!

3. You may have noticed next week's meeting is timed on Election Day. I have put up a timely poll on the website, to create the endorsement that may well decide the election: The Garden Posse of Austin, Texas endorsement. Vote on the poll and vote early!

4. In more Election Day news, Travis has offered to host the Garden Posse at his election party at his house. It may be outside, it may be inside, but either way, there will be drinks to enhance celebration or numb the defeat of your candidate. (And in the case of defeat, to kick off your 4-year binge.) And to keep in line with our goal of planting stuff, Megan had this idea: Buy a bunch of old shoes, fill them with dirt, and plant flowers in them. We would then, as individuals, place them around town. Good idea? You tell us. RSVP!

Guide to our gardens

A couple of weeks ago we spoke about creating Google maps for our gardens, and for our resources. I finally got around to doing it. (Lo and behold, it was incredibly easy and took about two seconds. Yay for user friendly.)

Let this map be your guide to Garden Posse gardens:


View Larger Map

If you choose to venture out and pick some of the bounty, please remember to leave some for others. And you'll make a guerrilla gardener very happy if you take a moment to water and weed.

Tonight! East Side! One more time!

The polls have spoken: By a nearly unanimous decision, we're returning to finish our business on the East Side triangle garden tonight.

Apologies to the one person who wanted to work on our awesome Halloween costumes: Let's save it for another night.

Tonight we'll meet at 7:30 pm at the traffic triangle. It's at the intersection of Lott & Eastfield & Mansell. Here's a google map. (Cool feature - if you click to Street View and turn around, you can see the triangle pre-garden.)

We'll paint our sign, finish the walkway, label the plants, and do some standard garden maintenance. And then, a celebratory dance if anyone feels up for it. And finally, we'll discuss next week's site. Whoo! New garden!

I'd like to draw your attention to East Austinite, a blog about happenings on the East Side, and the nice post they wrote about us. If any devoted East Austinites spot an empty lot, or field, or swatch of public land that could be transformed into a useful garden, please let us know.

See you tonight!
Lindsay

Eastside Triangle Garden

I think we need to finish up the Eastside garden before we move to south Austin. I feel like our 34th street garden was for us so we felt ok leaving it when we did, but this garden is for that community. Honestly, I probably won't head over to it after we finish.

So, with that said, I think it is important that we leave those people a fininshed product, that ourselves are satisfied with. Then move on to South Austin. I will take some pictures of a couple bus stops and a couple other places.

But, for now, I think it would serve our mission better to make sure the Eastside garden is the best it can be for the people on that block.

TG

Photos from Maker Faire

Maker Faire was a blast. Above, McAllen rocks out on the Cyclecide, fair rides powered by pedaling.

McAllen, Lindsay, and Carly.
Megan couldn't be happier. Really.

The Sashimi Tabernacle Choir! Coolest car ever.

There was also a food and garden tent, with a seed bomb making station! And lots and lots of crafts, and cool shiny things to get distracted by. Plus, ROBOT BATTLES. Yeah, Maker Faire was cool.

Next week's plans

Last time we spoke, as a Posse, we said we would take our hiatus to scout new sites, post pictures on the blog, and decide on our next garden.

Also the last time we spoke, we had some unfinished business at the East Side traffic triangle. It really rained on our plans that night. We still have to finish painting our sign for the garden, building the rock walkway, plus people had some good ideas about labeling the plants and providing suggestions about how to use them. I believe a few of us were of the opinion that the garden would have greater potential if the community knew more about it.

So we have a couple of choices for next week:

• Move on to our next garden
• Finish business on the East Side
• Plan our costumes for Halloween

I will put a poll up on the side of the blog, and please discuss on this post. Or post pictures of potential sites if you have them.

The Miracle on 34th Street

Okay, so it's not quite a miracle. A vegetable garden, if all goes well, is expected to grow and prosper and give fruit. But you have to admit, it feels like a miracle. Baby tomatoes are growing before our very own eyes.

Is there anything more beautiful than a zucchini flower?

Yes, when that flower is attached to a healthy squash.

It's a cucumber, in its furry fetus stage.

Sprouts coming up where I planted the spinach and lettuce.

A bit of rain in the past week has done this garden a bunch of good.

The lantana, which I'd given up as a dud, has come out with blooms again.

And it looks like this cosmo, planted from seed, is finally about to burst. It reminds me of a baby with a scrunched up face, about to explode into tears. Except I think the cosmo will be a more pleasant experience.

Also, our pizza plant has finally fruited! I ran into the owner of Salvation Pizza while I was watering yesterday morning, and he said he would trade us a small pizza for basil. Mmmm.... I didn't make the trade yet, because I want to share, but I don't want to bring the Posse a week old pizza.

Sharing goes for the rest of the produce from our first guerrilla garden. Everyone, even those not in the Posse, are welcome to take anything from the garden. It's all public. Basil, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and eventually melon, beans, peas, spinach, and lettuce will be there.

Just keep in mind the guidelines we came up with last week: Take some, and leave some for others. Take care of the garden. It's yours!