Day 115 October 8th Che Guevara

Sorry I have been MIA (especially to you Sheila)...I have slowed down as the garden has slowed down and the evenings have gotten colder. I have gotten busy with other things, but I received this email today (it is below) and it reminded me that many of us were going to plant bulbs, but mostly it was just a great reminder all round about the importance of taking action.

I love the idea (as talked about below) of colourful land mines...especially during this time of war. If you would still like to get together to plant bulbs (not this Monday, but soon) please email me or respond to this post and we will coordinate a time.

Dear Troops DAY OF THE HEROIC GUERRILLA Che Ernesto Guevara - a man who wrote about sowing the seeds of revolution but was not a particularly enthusiastic gardener - is someone from whom we borrow a bit of spirit. He was executed forty years ago and in Cuba October 8th, the day before his death, is called Day of the Heroic Guerrilla. Love him or loathe him, with or without a Che tattoo on your shoulder (the footballer Maradona has one but is not a guerrilla gardener) make this day your reason to get out there gardening, perhaps even with something red and revolutionary, albeit green as well. In London on Monday we will be digging in more scarlet tulip bulbs that did so well last year. Bulbs are a great way to guerrilla garden. Take a tulip for example. Dig a hole about 15cm deep and drop a couple or so bulbs in with the pointy bit up. Then cover it firmly with soil. That is really all you need to do before it flowers in spring. If it is spring already where you live you have got even more choice. Take a photo of the patch and then you will remember where you have dug in your colourful land mine. Please do share what you have done on the Community pages of the website. http://guerrillagardening.org/community/index.php?topic=583.0 SUNFLOWERS Back in May Girasol 829 in Brussels heralded the first International Sunflower Guerrilla Day. The blooming results from this global guerrilla campaign can be seen at his blog: http://brussels-farmer.blogspot.com/ HARVEST In the Northern hemisphere it is a time for a rich pickings in the garden. In London guerrillas have concentrated on harvesting the lavender field of Westminster Bridge Road to make another batch of fund raising pillows. These illicitly planted but legitimately hand crafted aromatic cushions will be available from the website in the next few weeks. My first tomato plant successfully bore fruit in the dirty Elephant & Castle area of London but I have been advised they are best left for wildlife to eat. Earlier this summer I saw Hans 1287 and his promising lettuce and cabbages in the Berlin Rosa Rose garden. But it is not all joy - sadly Bill 2787's beans in Detroit were slain by a reckless strimmer before reaching maturity. If you have got a successful guerrilla harvest of some kind do share it in the Community forum or let me know. There are some guerrillas out there who do not garden but just harvest, check out http:// www.fallenfruit.org for more about this project, making the most of wasted fruit. GLOBAL GUERRILLAS This summer I have been meeting guerrilla gardeners around Europe and in Canada. Thanks everyone for showing me your gardens and giving me somewhere to sleep. Pictures of these visits to the front line are on the blog at http://www.guerrillagardening.org. Get some encouragement from the success of Posterchild 3261 in Toronto with his flower boxes, Tom 2221 and sunflowers around Amsterdam, Julia 013 and her community gardens around Berlin and more. Marcel 1137 showed me that guerrilla gardening does not just take place in neglected public space but privately too. He has an incredible illegal little roof garden that makes a green sanctuary from wasted space - we just hope this will not one day collapse as a hollow victory into the bedroom below. Remember, Monday October 8, let us make it Day of the Heroic Guerrilla Gardeners.