Legally planting a median! July 10

Usually, the Garden Posse spends the summer alternatively hiding inside and watering our plants and praying for their survival. But we are coming out of our summer hibernation (is that a thing?) to plant an East Side median, legally!

Landscape architect Ilse Frank asked us to participate in the planting of the median at Rosewood and Chicon with years of planning behind it. We said yes, as our last garden is halfway across the street at the New Movement Theater! We need a couple of volunteers, so we hope you can make it out on Saturday, July 10 at 9 am for what is likely the only planting event of the summer.

Read about it on the Out & About blog, and look for the news in the July 4 edition of the Statesman!

The time hasn't been solidified, but it will probably be sometime in the morning.

Come to McAllen's Cooking Skillz & Potluck, July 8th!

Longtime Posse pal McAllen goes down to the roots of the Garden Posse - back when the idea for guerrilla gardening was hatched over a couple of homemade pizzas (food and great ideas always go together). McAllen went to a couple of workshops during Skillshare Austin's weekend of skills, and got inspired. He says, "As a gardener I've been wanting to make better use of all the food I'm growing for a long time. The Skillshare workshop inspired me to make that dream a reality, and teach it to others."

McAllen is going to be hosting a cooking skillz and potluck at his house (12th & Airport) from 7 - 10 pm on July 8. Featuring homegrown garlic! Here's the announcement, from McAllen himself:

Hey garden knomes. Or should I say "hay" garden knomes, hay makes great mulch. I'm allowed one awful pun for the year.

So check it out: I harvested some garlic in my community garden a few weeks ago. It takes that long for the bulbs to cure before they're ready for use. It's almost time to put it in the pantry. What the heck am I going to do with twelve heads of garlic? This question gave me an idea. I want to host a workshop in which people teach a few skills about food, including how to make:

Roasted Garlic
Ornamental Hot Pepper Wreaths
Flavored, Ornamental Oil Jars
Soup Stock from Scratch
Some great recipes that are as easy as they are tasty
Also:
Canning
Time Saving Food Prep Tips

Bring a dish to share!

Garden this weekend!

Recently, the Garden Posse was contacted by landscape architect Ilse Frank, a woman with her fingers in many planting pies. She won a grant from Keep Austin Beautiful to install gardens near bus stops, and she needs volunteers for a dig that's happening this Saturday, from 9 am to 3 pm! There are FREE TACOS in it for you! Here's the info.

Hey Volunteers, Ambassadors, and Friends of Plaza Saltillo,

Great news! 

Our Plaza Saltillo Beautification team is ready to plant more trees and plants.  Thanks to the hard work from our volunteer Landscape Architect Ilse Frank, the folks here at Capital Metro, and some help from PARD, we have the resources and assistance we need for another volunteer day!  Hurray!

However, summer is upon us so we need to host our volunteer day asap.

Please join us on Saturday, June 19 from 9AM – 3PM. 

Location:  412 Comal Street, Austin, TX 78702

Parking:  Consider taking the bus, carpooling, biking, or walking!  Limited parking on North and South side of site. 

Bring: Water, Hats, Sunscreen, Water bottles,

Wear: Clothes to get dirty in.

We need about 40 volunteers to get the job done, so spread the word to your co-workers and friends. 

New garden at the New Movement

Huzzah! The Garden Posse has installed a new garden at the New Movement Theater, home of improv comedy classes and shows, as well as the megaphone pictured above. And temporary home to the monkey pictured below.

As we mentioned in our last post, the plan for this garden was hatched by our new friend Jen, who is both an improv and guerrilla gardening enthusiast. This makes her a person who is funny and handy with a shovel. She'd spent some time planting at the door of the theater and had started making her way down the side of the small building. The Garden Posse joined in to speed up the process, with a whole bunch of perennials donated by Shoal Creek Nursery, and more hands.

One of the Garden Posse's favorite adages to needlepoint on pillows is "Many hands make light work." So we were psyched to see a whole bunch of new guerrilla gardeners cruise in on bikes to help out! Here we are, hard at work. 

We pulled out all the weeds that lined the side of the building, in order to amend the notoriously crappy soil that Jen had warned us about. Then we spaced out all of the plants - blackfoot daisy, lantana, firecracker, verbena, and more - and settled them in to their new homes. Here is Jen putting the finishing touches on the newly installed garden plus some improv people hanging out:

Yeah, so that's not the best photo, but trust us, it's going to be so pretty! As we were digging, we got lots of encouragement from neighbors driving by, who would stop at the stoplight and shout out their windows things like, "I appreciate what you're doing!" in perhaps more colorful language.

The other great thing about this garden (besides all the people who helped out, and its beautiful future) is that the people of the New Movement Theater are truly awesome (love fest time!). We are looking forward to the fall when we have some property stuff worked out and we can unleash the Posse powers on this beautiful, wide expanse of grass behind the building:

Can you say community garden? Also, can you say delicious smoked BBQ? The smokehouse!

Garden Posse teams up with improv comedy theater, hilarity ensues!

The Garden Posse is a lover of all kinds of laughter: Giggles, chortles, chuckles, hoots, belly laughs, and laughing until you think you can't laugh anymore but you keep laughing because there is no way to stop. So we're very, very happy to be working with The New Movement Theater, which puts on improv comedy classes and shows here in Austin! Jen, an ambassador from The New Movement, has been guerrilla gardening on her own in along the side of the building. She came to our dig at Chestnut last week, told us what she's envisioning for the space, and asked for our help. With Jen's enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm of The New Movement's founders, we are totally psyched to start gardening here!

Next Tuesday, May 25, we'll be meeting at 8 PM (a half hour later than our usual time) in front of the New Movement Theater (1819 Rosewood). It's on the East Side, next to local landmark Nubian Queen Lola's.

We'll be planting landscaping plants along the side of the building, and scheming about what else we'd like to do in the building's spacious backyard and Lola's alley. It's getting close to the end of planting season (heating up much?) so we'll be thinking in the grand scheme for the fall.

Here's a photo of the space, which we checked out last night:

And here's a map to get there!

View Larger MapDriving DirectionsView Bird's Eye

Chestnut Garden tomorrow, Skillshare in June!

One of our oldest and favorite guerrilla gardens is the Chestnut Garden. It's got a great location across from Chestnut Park, and it's in an abandoned lot with lots of room for expansion. We'll be replanting it for spring/ summer tomorrow night! We'll meet at 16th & Chestnut at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 11.

Bring any plants you need to get in the ground, and whatever tools ya got. Headlamps are always helpful!

If you've been outside in the last two weeks, you'll notice it's getting hot - that means the Chestnut Garden is one of the last gardens we'll be planting this season! Get in on this sweet guerrilla action before it is too late and we reverse hibernate for summer.

Oh and one more thing: Our friends at Skillshare Austin are hosting their annual Skillshare Workshop on June 5-6 at Space 12. That means a whole weekend filled with fun and practical workshops on everything from DIY art & craft to parenting to chicken tractors. The Garden Posse will be hosting a workshop on something either gardening or guerrilla related. Put it on your calendar! www.skillshareaustin.org