Tomorrow, we dig. Or we ambush?

I'm still trying out the guerrilla gardener lexicon. Guerrillagardening.org, a venerable authority, refers to guerrilla activities as "Troop Digs," but I like missions, or ambushes, or is an ambush more of a strategy than an activity? An adjective relative to a noun?

It probably doesn't matter. Call it what you will, it's happening tomorrow night at 8pm. The weather looks good, and we should have a good corps of gardeners, or troops. (I'm beginning to wonder why everything is so militaristic.) Many of you have volunteered seeds, plants, and compost. I received a large donation of soil from the Great Outdoors, and I'll be getting some transplants tomorrow.

We'll also have some visitors from the Statesman. Gardening blogger Renee Studebaker will be there with a photographer for a story on guerrilla gardeners in Austin. If you do not wish to be quoted or photographed for the story, I'm sure they'll respect your wishes. And hopefully Renee will bring some gardening tips.

See you tomorrow! Oh, and here are some pictures of my favorite ants.


(I'm trying to think of a metaphor between these tireless leaf-cutter ants and guerrilla gardeners. Perhaps after tomorrow night we can think of an accurate metaphor.)

Operation Sidewalk Freedom

So this is the site of our first Garden Posse guerrilla garden mission. As you can see, it's a neglected patch of land that needs some love. It's between two sidewalks, next to a construction site/repository of some sort (we're finding out exactly what), and littered with trash. Right now, it's an eyesore. But it could be a beautiful, fertile, and mysterious land of flowers and veggies and herbs for all to enjoy.

That is, if you show up to lend a hand next Tuesday, August 26 at 8pm. We'll be cleaning up the area, and then getting to work with the plants and seeds.

You'll need to bring gardening gloves (especially because no one wants to touch trash with bare hands) and whatever tools you can get your hands on. We might have extras on hand, but no guarantees. Also, PLEASE let us know if you have donations of plants or seeds! That would be so great. You'd get a Garden Posse Special Star, handcrafted, by me.

Tell us that you are coming on Tuesday, via email or comments. The meeting spot will again be at Foodhead's on W 34th st. And tell your friends too! See you then.

Ready to garden?

I'm back from Peru. It was wonderful - energizing, relaxing, and winter - everything a person from Texas could want in a summer vacation. But now it is over, and it is time to garden. Because as we move into fall, plants are less likely to die, and that's exciting.

So in celebration, and preparation for our inaugural Garden Posse guerrilla gardener mission, we're having a planning meeting this Tuesday at 7:30 pm. We'll be looking at the site and deciding on our plan of attack (ambush, maybe?). Meaning, we'll assess what the land needs, what sorts of plants we should plant, logistics, and all that. There will also be some discussion about other possible directives of the Garden Posse, like visiting and helping in members' gardens.

We'll meet at Foodheads, which is across the street from the potential site. Foodheads is a sandwich shop at 616 W 34th St, Austin, TX 78705, near the intersection of 34th and Guadelupe. Foodheads will be closed but they have some picnic tables there, and if we need to use the internet there's a coffeeshop close by.

The planning meeting is definitely not mandatory for participation in the guerrilla aspect of the Garden Posse. But it would be really great to meet everyone and start collaborating with ideas.

I would be grateful if you responded via email or comment if you know you'll make it on Tuesday. Hope to see you then!

Vacation calls, guerrilla duty waits

So I've spent the last few days researching this guerrilla gardening thing - reading books, lurking on bulletin boards, hoarding tips, squirreling away sites, imagining what life would be like if I could go pick a salad outside the office for lunch - and suffice to say, I'm very excited about it. I wish we could get started with planting this very weekend. But I'm afraid that won't work, because tomorrow I am going to Peru.

Surely, even guerrilla gardeners take vacations. I work in the media, and August is generally considered "dead time" - which is, coincidentally, also how I feel about the mid-August heat of Central Texas. So, I am escaping to hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Pichu, or raft the deepest canyon in the world, or float along the Amazon, or visit the reed islands of Lake Titicaca.... I'm not quite sure, because a friend in Peru is planning this trip. But I'm pretty sure it will be awesome. And when I get back in two weeks, I'll be reinvigorated to plot a guerrilla gardening mission.

So if you've given me your email address, you are on the email list, and you will receive updates as soon as they're available. In the meantime, take these two weeks as an opportunity to do some guerrilla-style scheming of your own. (And start some seeds!)

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.