Guerrilla gardening

Guerrilla gardening is political gardening, a form of nonviolent direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists. It is related to land rights, land reform, and permaculture. Activists take over ("squat") an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it.

Some guerrilla gardeners carry out their actions at night, in relative secrecy, to sow and tend a new vegetable patch or flower garden. Others work more openly, seeking to engage with members of the local community, as illustrated in the examples that follow. It has grown into a form of proactive activism or pro-activism.

History

The earliest record of the term Guerrilla gardening being used was by Liz Christy and her Green Guerrilla group in 1973 in the Bowery Houston area of New York. They transformed a derelict private lot into a garden. Thirty five years on the space is beautiful, is still cared for by volunteers but now enjoys the protection of the city's parks department. Guerrilla gardening of this form - that is gardening on someone else's land without permission - has been around for centuries, there is even a reference to it in the bible [cite?]. Two celebrated guerrilla gardeners, active prior to the coining of the term, were Gerald Winstanley and The Diggers in Surrey England (1649) and John "Appleseed" Chapman in Ohio USA (1801).

Guerrilla gardening is happening all over the world. In Northern Utah apple trees commonly grow along the banks of canals. Asparagus grows along the smaller ditch banks. Many of these plants were seeded 150 years ago by the workers who dug the canals, by burying their lunch apple core in the freshly dug soil, or by surreptitiously spreading seeds along a new ditchbank. Guerrilla gardening continues today as individuals secretly plant fruit trees, edible perennials, and flowers in parks, along bike trails, etc. Some guerrilla gardeners do so for the purpose of providing food. For example the Tacamiche banana plantation workers in Honduras illegally grew vegetables on the abandoned plantation land rather than leave with the plant's closure in 1995.

The term guerrilla gardening is applied by some quite loosely to describe different forms of 'radical' gardening. This includes gardening as an entirely political gesture rather than one with genuine horticultural ambition - the most famous of which is probably the London May Day protest in 2000 when no long term garden was expected to take root. Guerrilla gardening has also been used by a number of writers to give a radical edge to their gardening books. One of these is a book titled "Guerrilla Gardening" was published in 1983 by John F. Adams aimed at encouraging amateur gardeners to grow heirloom varieties that are not the result of corporate hybridization. Another was a book by Barbara Pallenberg called Guerrilla Gardening which instructed how to make a garden on a small budget.

Examples

Pure Genius!!

One high-profile example of guerrilla gardening took place in May 1996, when about 500 activists affiliated with The Land is Ours, including the journalist George Monbiot, occupied 13 acres of derelict land belonging to the Guinness company on the banks of the River Thames in Wandsworth, south London. Their action aimed to highlight what they described as "the appalling misuse of urban land, the lack of provision of affordable housing and the deterioration of the urban environment".

A community grew up on the site called "Pure Genius!!" (named after the Guinness advertising slogan). They lived there for five and a half months before being evicted.^[1]

Have på en nat

Later on July 1, 1996 Have på en nat (en: Garden in a night) was made by the Danish [[Økologiske Igangsættere]] (en: Organic starters).

An empty piece of land in the middle of the city at Guldbergsgade in Nørrebro, Copenhagen Denmark was transformed into a garden in a single night. About 1000 people took part in the project.

Mayday 2000

On May day 2000, Reclaim the Streets organised a mass guerrilla gardening action in Parliament Square, London. After a carnivalesque procession with a samba band, and a Critical Mass bike ride from Hyde Park, thousands of guerrilla gardeners occupied the square and planted vegetables and flowers. A maypole was erected around which many of the gardeners danced. Banners hung in the square reading 'Resistance is Fertile' (a pun on "futile"), 'Let London Sprout', 'Capitalism is Pants', and 'The Earth is a Common Treasury for All,' the latter being a quote from the seventeenth century Digger Gerrard Winstanley. An Indymedia public access terminal was set up in the new allotment, and the statue of Winston Churchill was given a green turf mohican. The perpetrator (an ex British soldier) was fined for his vandalism of the Churchill statue.^[2]

Leaf Street Community Garden

Leaf Street is an acre of land in Hulme, Manchester, England that was once an urban street until turfed over by Manchester City Council. Local people, facilitated by Manchester Permaculture Group, took direct action in turning the site into a thriving community garden.[1]

Abahlali baseMjondolo

The South Africa shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has begun gardens in a number of their affiliated settlements such as the Kennedy Road settlement.

MST

Landless Workers' Movement (MST), in Brazil, has occupied millions of hectares of land in Brazil and put them under cultivation.

References

External links

GuerrillaGardening.org- The global forum for guerrilla gardeners
Blind Guerrilla Gardener An inspirational short film about a blind guerrilla gardener in London
Allotmenteering Reflections on Guerrilla Gardening and Allotmenteering
Moss Graffiti How to make moss graffiti

Regional

Posterchild Guerrilla Gardening by Posterchild in Toronto
Toronto Guerrilla Gardening - Organized by the Toronto Public Space Committee
Primal Seeds on Guerrilla Gardening (based in London)
Gruenewelle.org- Guerrilla gardening in Berlin, Germany
Brussels Farmer Guerrilla gardening in Brussels Belgium
Green Guerillas Supporting community gardening in New York

[1] 'Pure Genius' land squat, Wandsworth, London, 1996

[2] London Mayday 2000 pages on Urban 75

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