I'm Back...

I have been MIA for several weeks (months?)...there are a few reasons for that: I have been busy and have been on holidays...okay so that only amounts to about two weeks...the real reason is my baby Mac (my 12" powerbook) broke down...so sad - I always wrote my blogs on my laptop (truth be told usually from a cafe or my bed at night...egad - I suppose a laptop in bed is just as bad for a relationship as a TV, eh?) Anyway...the inconvenience of having to go to my desk top - yes I do realize how spoiled that sounds - stopped me from taking the time to post...AND then once I was behind it was hard to get back at it, you know? But there is much to say and catch up on...

Cheryl Harty

I met Cheryl Harty through freecycle (if you don't know what it is you should check it out - it is a great way to get rid of things you no longer need and perhaps find some you do). I had posted a message asking for any plants people might have left over after their spring planting. Cheryl donated a tonne of plants for the guerrilla war on underused spaces. Her yard is huge and amazing. Cheryl was a wonderful woman to meet, she has a great smile - you know those smiles that make you feel immediately comfortable?

Cheryl showed us a path she had made from Rhubarb leaves and cement. Below is a picture of the path as well as a detail of one of the stones. She said you lay a Rhubarb leaf in some sand - add enough cement to cover the leave then put in a bit of chicken wire and add more cement. I loved 'em.
My sister and her kids came out with me and Cheryl let the kids run around and play with her cats. She donated (I hope I remember it all) Oregano, Grape Vine, Strawberries, Tarragon, Tomatoes...oh ug I am forgetting - but she gave us a bunch of plants - and it was a wonderful day. Below is my nephew Felix with her cat - who was great with the kids.

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/

For the Birds!

Above is our neighbour's (Richard and Marlene) boulevard. I talked about them quite on last years blog. Marlene and Richard are very supportive of the Boulevarden (in spirit and - offering labour and plants to the Boulevarden, and explaining to people who pass by what the garden is. Richard has dug up two large 'gardens' and is planting them in with tomatoes. Richard's brother-in-law grew an abundance of tomato plants and have them 20 or so.

The first time I grew tomatoes from seed I ended up with literally hundreds of plants. Because I had grown them from seed I was attached to every plant and couldn't bring myself to send any to their death in the compost. I walked up and down our block offering tomato plants (I didn't have have any guerrilla gardens then).

Okay and now to 'For the Birds', part one. It all started this morning...(cue foggy, rippling screen)

...the morning started out innocent enough, I had some breakfast, did a bit of reading and was getting ready to go out to the garden. Then all of a sudden my cat Fury came running in the bedroom with a bird in her mouth...zoikes with a capital zee...unfortunately I behaved completely irrationally. I like to think of myself as independent person who can tackle anything - but the first thing I did was run out of the house screaming and call my partner Paul who thankfully wasn't in a meeting and came home to remove the bird (in fairness we only live a couple blocks away, but still)...I feel like a lame louse that I couldn't do it myself...

After Paul left I started to wonder where the heck Fury could have caught a bird as she is an indoor cat...it turns out from the fireplace! This is the second time a bird has come down the chimney so we are going to put wire mesh on the roof opening...whew

After all the excitement I went out to the garden for a few hours - I planted some corn in a space which I am pretty sure does not even remotely have enough room to grow...I know, I know, so why did I plant it there, right? Well for two reasons, first the garden is pretty full at the moment. I need divide and remove some of the plants and also to get rid of some plants that were fast growing 'fillers' that we planted last year before we got things going. For example, we have seven Catmint plants...which were great last year to give texture and colour to the garden, but this year I am going to take out four plants, divide and pot them up, and then put them in the Boulevarden for the tak'n. (side note all of the seedlings and volunteers I put out last night were gone this morning).

Ummm...okay now where was I? Oh right..the corn. So, the second reason I planted it where I did was in the hopes it would be a bit of a wind barrier for the tomatoes. See the picture below...and...I know...shake your head at my poor, poor planting choices - more than likely later in the season I will post a picture documenting their move.
'For the Birds' part two - sparrows have been taking insulation from our neighbours house. As i sit at my kitchen table I can watch them go up under the siding of their house and come out with a piece of insulation so large they can barely fly away. The other day Marlene was out with some foam insulation in attempts to keep the birds out. Later when I was outside she and I chatted about the scampy nest building birds. Our chat reminded me of something I had read a while ago in one of my gardening books or magazines...it suggested putting out dryer lint for the birds to use for their nest building. So I grabbed a bundle as well as a bundle of thin willow branches I had cut from a small bush on the Boulevarden and tied them to a branch of our birch tree with some jute. Below is a picture - Paul thinks it looks nasty - I think it looks lovely...we will have to wait and see what the birds think.