Guerrilla park in Austin

One day, a man named Joe Zamecki got tired of seeing trash stored in the open space behind the fence across from his North Austin apartment complex. This video is the story of the ongoing conversion.

A post on guerrillagardening.org's community board for Austin tells that the project now involves a vegetable garden. Nice!

It's not all about gardening

Sometimes, it's time to garden. And sometimes, it's time to get together and eat some food and drink some beer. For the Garden Posse, that time was last night. We gathered in my tiny studio apartment and talked about things that are not gardens or potential gardens. Like Sarah Palin, for example. Sarah Palin is not a garden, nor does she inspire us to garden. She just inspires us - and the entire country - to talk about her.

But anyhow. The potluck was fun and delicious, and I made my first ever panazella, for which the recipe is here, if you're interested in recreating a special moment. And then you can invite us all over to your house to share.

I keep forgetting to mention that someone left a garden temper with a blue handle behind on the very first dig. I put it in a prominent place in my house last night, but again forgot to mention it. Apparently this hand tool is very forgettable. If you forgot it, and you want it back, let me know. Otherwise, I'll count it as a donation and try to figure out how to use it.

So next week, we'll return for the final week to the garden at 34th & Guadelupe. Then, we'll decide where to move our roaming garden posse next. Maybe we'll just close our eyes and zoom in on a Google map of Austin. Or we could make a responsible decision. Who knows? Come and find out.




Oh, and a note on the blog: I've transferred ownership to a new Garden Posse account. Now you can contact us at gardenposse@gmail.com. And now you can also contribute to the blog, when you email gardenposse@gmail.com and say that's what you would like to do. Wouldn't you? But if you are more of the spectator/lurker type, you can request to receive an email every time this blog is updated. Technology offers something for everyone.

Garden arts n'crafts

Hey, does anyone want to make a moss terrarium?


It could be kind of guerrilla, you know, taking moss from forests. Maybe later we could deposit them outside fifth-grade science classrooms, so kids wouldn't have to do their homework.

For more nice nature crafts, click here.

Establishing the pizza crop and a garden schedule

Last night the Garden Posse returned to the guerrilla garden at 34th & Guadelupe. In the week since it was born, our first garden has begun to sprout. Cucumber and squash seedlings have poked their heads above the soil, and peas and cosmos are making tiny appearances. Our leggy tomato plant continues to signify the vegetable garden, and the flower border is making it all look pretty.

(Photographs will be added here)

I've been watering the garden - across from my bus stop - with thanks to the generosity of Salvation Pizza. The owner, as he helped me wrench the spigot open (it's child-proof), offered that he would be willing to trade us basil for pizza, if we grew a crop in our garden. They go through 4 - 5 lbs of basil a week.

Salvation Pizza is really good. So, I got some basil. We now have a whole basil section of the guerrilla garden. Here's hoping that it will yield a pizza. (The pizza plant! Anyone seen Wall-E?)

We also fattened up the flower border, with plants courtesy of the Shoal Creek Nursery. And Megan and Travis put together a tepee for the peas to climb up. This morning I found it blown over onto the basil, and I had to do a bit of salvage work. Soon that will be anchored down, and we'll have a real structure in our garden.

We were also planning to put up a Garden Posse sign, but the arts n'crafts portion of the evening fell through, as the art shop I was planning to get paint apparently only sells tiny mosaic pieces. So that will get done next week.

Speaking of next week, and the whole future ahead of us, you'll see that we've added an "Upcoming Events" calendar in the upper-right corner of the blog. Last night we worked out a rough schedule on a 4-week cycle.

Week 1 - establish new garden
Week 2 - maintain/expand new garden
Week 3 - do something fun, potentially involving beer
Week 4 - final return to garden

All meetings are Tuesday, at 8pm, unless otherwise noted. The schedule is, of course, subject to change. We're also planning on trips to Blackland Learning Garden, Quilombo Communal Garden, garden art projects, seed bombs, and plant give-aways. So many possibilities! The Posse also spoke of guerrilla gardening bus stops and guerrilla plant propagation.

So next week, according to "Upcoming Events," we'll be meeting at my house for a potluck and sign painting session. I'll be sending more details (such as where I live) in an email. If you're not on the list and you want to be, leave your contact info in the comments.

Community gardening this Saturday

Join the Garden Posse's intrepid founder, Megan, at Quilombo garden this Saturday from 5-8 to plant seeds. Quilombo is a communal garden on the east side of Austin, and it's awesome.

For more information, visit quilombogardens.org and/or contact Megan.

Directions: 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.

We dug it

The Garden Posse's first dig was a success. Thanks to everyone who showed up, the trash that had plagued our site was quickly swept away, soil was dug up and amended, and plants and seeds were put in their place. We had created the beginnings of a garden in two hours.


There are so many great things about guerrilla gardening. It was great to see so many people show up, looking eager and excited to garden. And then to literally attack the area with gardening. Shovels, hands, trowels, plants, and seeds came in very rapid succession.


I think everyone felt really good about what we were doing. And it was very reaffirming when people stopped by while walking their dogs, or after finishing a meal at Salvation Pizza, to ask what we were doing and thank us for it. My favorite comment came from an older woman (a fellow gardener) at the end of the night: "We were just watching Batman tonight, while you all were doing good!"

I'm thinking maybe the mayor's office should flash a signal into the night sky whenever guerrilla gardeners are needed.

So, so many thanks to everyone who came to get involved with the Garden Posse. We are so excited about our future in guerrilla gardening. Also thanks to Renee and Joe from the Austin-American Statesman, who came out to observe our illicit gardening activities with an objective eye (and some cameras).


The consensus from many people was that we should meet and garden on a weekly basis. We'd stick to Tuesday nights at 8pm, for now.

The rough plan for next week is to meet back at this site at 34th and Guadelupe to maintain what we planted this week, and possibly extend the garden if I can get some more plants (or if you can). We'll also paint a Garden Posse sign, and discuss a calendar of future events. I'll update and email this information as the details become clear.

See you next week!

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.)