Guerrilla pizza party

There's really nothing better than a pizza party - except if it's a Garden Posse homemade pizza party. I've been working for years on perfecting my pizza making technique, persisting despite early experiences of verbal abuse from college roommates when my dough wouldn't rise and the pizza came out like dense flatbread. But it did get better. Now I've declared that if I had to eat one or two foods for the rest of my life, one would be pizza. (The other would be pancakes.) Pizza allows for infinite variety, which some say is cheating.

Last Friday, the Garden Posse made and enjoyed pizza with pesto, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, and local cheeses. And then we plotted. The most difficult thing we experienced with our garden at Project Imagine was rallying people to come out to the garden and commit to volunteering. People would show up for a meeting, maybe come by for a couple of weeks, and then disappear. A full garden can't live like that. But with guerrilla gardening, we'll have an evolving group of projects ranging from small to large, some vegetables, some flora, none requiring intense maintenance. That way you can have the good, dirty accomplishment of gardening, the thrill of evading the law, and keep an eye out for the plants and water them if the garden is in your area. And we hope to temper the hard work with post-guerrilla gardening potlucks (and maybe more pizza parties).

Of course, guerrilla gardening still requires the collection of plants, soil, compost, and those little stone squirrels and frogs that add such a nice touch to any garden. Let me know if you have any donation suggestions, or suggestions for guerrilla gardening sites! I've already scouted out several sites within walking distance of my house. I imagine them filled with wildflowers, and gnomes.

Garden Posse Guerrilla Gardening

The Garden Posse has been on hiatus for the summer, but we're regrouping for the fall with a new project: Guerrilla gardening in Austin!

Guerrilla gardening is about cultivating plants and beauty in the forgotten places of public space. It's about taking a dusty plot of dirt and making it into something productive. Without permission.

We're in the planning stages now - scoping out potential sites, rounding up plants and soil, scheming, plotting, masterminding - and we hope to have guerrilla digs planned throughout the fall. We'd like for these digs to be social events, and eventually build a community of like-minded gardeners.

If you're interested in joining the planning, participating, or even have experience with digs of your own, please respond to this post with contact information. Serious inquiries only, though. Meaning, if we're going to give you the enthusiasm and courtesy of a response, we'd like you to intend to meet us and fully participate.

To learn more about guerrilla gardening, visit:

GuerrillaGardening.org

New York Times article on Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla Gardening at TreeHugger

"Project Imagine, not Project Fruition"

A number of months ago, the Garden Posse made the decision to leave the garden at Project Imagine. It had to do with a number of factors. Basically, we couldn't get an agreement with the landowner for long-term use of the land, which is Objective Number 1 in the community garden handbook. Eventually, with the lack of land commitment, members moved on to doing other things or starting other projects.

But our year's worth of experience at Project Imagine taught us a lot, and we intend to parlay that experience into new and exciting gardening projects. Stay tuned.