Busy, Busy - and so a wee bit (read lots) behind

Hi all...sorry I have not posted for a bit - I have been guerilla gardening and have pictures others have sent me from their battles, but I have been too busy...well...gardening to get them posted...soon.

Two Lethbridge Guerilla's Wage War on a Neglected space - we all win!!!

Before
After

Shawna and Erin McPherson took on a project downtown, and boy o boy did they transform the space! Like true guerilla gardeners they looked for materials they could find that were not being used...in this case rocks...and captured them to use in their battle

Erin on her way to the rock pile - isn't this a lovely picture?


Da rocks...heavy rocks

The tired guerillas...half way there

Erin and Shawna brought landscape cloth

Guerilla Gardening Meeting/Coyote Garden Update

At our guerilla gardening meeting/walk last week we discussed a few spaces that needed attention. When we were planting the Coyote Garden Shawna McPherson told us about the planters pictured above and below. We thought this would be great for our next project. I am picking up some tomato and herb plants tomorrow that have been donated from Cheryl Harty in Raymond, so we can use those for the planters. We will also need to bring some soil and compost as the planters are in bad shape and filled with pea gravel.


I checked the Coyote Garden yesterday...the tomato plants did not survive so I am replanting three or four this afternoon, the other plants are doing well though and the seeds are sprouting...it looks like the catmint is being well used by the 'downtown' cats.

A Link From Ashley

Ashley, an Edmonton gardner, artist, activist, crafter, and friend sent me a link to an item on Esty (last fall I posted Ashley's end of season garden diary which was lovely). She had seen my post a week or so ago regarding the lint ball I had put out for the birds (as they were 'stealing' the neighbours insulation) - she found a craftivist who had made the above 'ball' for birds and even gives them as gifts. I thought it was lovely and thought you might too... http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/craftivism/article/for-the-birds/1957/

There was also a link under craftivism regarding guerilla gardening...
http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/craftivism/article/earth-tones-growin-guerilla-style/1776/

Another Calgary Guerilla Gardener...

Above is Kari escaping with her 'stolen' plants (see below for 'stolen' explanation)

Hi...we had a guerilla gardening meeting last week - we walked around and identified some areas in Lethbridge that need guerilla gardening action - I will message the facebook group when our next plant troupe meeting is - if you would like to be added to the mailing list you can email me at edwalj@uleth.ca. We should be ready to go in the next week - I am just collecting some plants (speaking of that if you have any spare plants that you would like to donate to the efforts please let contact me...or you can drop them off at the boulevarden (1309 7 Ave South) under the cover of dark (added for dramatic value...anytime is great!)


Also some people asked what 'guerilla gardening was' and found out that they already were 'guerilla gardeners'!...for example Sherry and her friend without permission or recognition have cleaned up two perennial beds in a park across from their homes...guerilla gardening is basically a war against the abandonment, neglect and cementment (is that even a word? okay probably not as I have a red squiggly line under it on my screen...but you know what I mean, right?) of public spaces - and in my mind it is also a public reminder of the need to urban farm...and to share our bounties with each other...guerilla gardening is a community building experience.

Meanwhile...Kari McQueen a photographer/video artist from Calgary has begun her own project. t is a wonderful idea (and one we should practice here)...here a few of her pictures:


Kari explains, "My summer project is to rescue perennials from the yards of houses and apartment buildings slated for demolition for the ever increasing blight of condos. Slowly a garden is being constructed out of the construction orphans!"


All of the photographs above (except the bra planter) are Kari's documentation...way to go Kari!! Keep us updated.

If you have documentation, stories, and/or pictures of your illicit planting, uninvited weeding, or Robin Hood plant 'thievery' please let me know so that we can share them with others for inspiration.

Here are some examples of how a few other guerilla gardens have begun...


Public Space are the leading guerrilla gardening group in Canada. Based in Toronto guerrilla gardening is "graffiti with nature". As well as gardening they optimistically plant signs encouraging passers by to keep the ground watered.

In 1977, when a group of 48th Street New Yorkers noticed tomato plants growing out of the debris from the empty lot that had laid vacant and abandoned for over 28 years, the idea of a real garden began to germinate. With additional encouragement from city sanitation workers, in 1978 the Clinton Community Garden was born.

In Brussels guerrilla gardeners have been sowing sunflowers around their city and in 2006 launched May 1 as International Sunflower Guerrilla Day.

...and a cool UK site 'about seeds - collecting seeds, storing seeds, sowing seeds, germinating seeds and exchanging seeds, with pictures of seeds, seedpods and seedlings' http://theseedsite.co.uk/