Guerrilla Gardening

Networking in Urban Tacoma

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE

          Guerrilla gardening, in its simplest form, is planting things without asking permission of the land owner.   According to the Wikipedia entry on guerrilla gardening, it's political gardening; a form of non-violent direct action.   It's most commonly practiced on neglected sites...which can be anything from an abandoned planter on a city sidewalk to railroad right-of-ways that stretch for miles. Guerrilla gardeners usually plant things to make the soil productive and healthier, or at least brought to the attention of hurrying humans---many of whom seem to have forgotten that every patch of ground is precious.   Guerrilla gardens may be seeded and pretty much forgotten, or they can can be carefully tended (usually a dark of the night occupation) including watering, weeding, any necessary trimming---and harvesting!   Guerrilla gardeners plant hardy seeds for ground cover or "green manure" on ground so neglected or abused that it is essentially sterile.   They plant tough little flower seeds on the edges of things like sidewalks, to spring up and provide a dot of colour and cheer amongst the sharp corners and dead colours of city streets.   They plant seed and sometimes plants of recognizable vegetables in places like abandoned lots...with or without an intention of later harvest by themselves.   Fallen Fruit is a collaborative effort in California that advocates planting fruit trees.

          Tacoma is rife with possibilities for guerrilla gardens and guerrilla gardening.   Too many plots and patches are naked soil, or subject to weed abatement activities by city employees.   Every square foot of it has the potential to be healthier, to be beautiful....to be productive for your table, for your friends, to be harvested and given to Food Not Bombs and food banks.   How many unused spaces do you know?   Suggest a site!




We meet weekly on
Saturdays from 2-4 p.m.
in the space graciously provided by
pitchpipe infoshop
621 Martin Luther King Jr Way
Tacoma, WA 98405
to discuss projects, swap seeds, make seed balls
trade knowledge, network and build community.
You're welcome to join us! Questions? Ask here...

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops,
but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
--Masanobu Fukuoka

More Guerrilla Gardening Sites
[GuerrillaGardening.org]     [Operation: Moss Graffiti]     [Primal Seeds]    
[City Farmer]     [Heavy Petal]     [Canadian Activism Archives]    
[Vancouver Citizen's Committee]     [Conscious Urbanism]     [Word Spy}    
[In This Life Like Weeds]     [Thinking Ethics]     [Guerrilla Gardening in Guantanamo]    
[Tree Hugger]     [Swords Into Plowshares]     [Green Guerillas]    
[Public Space]     [Rock Corps]     [Bittermelon.org]    
[Kuro5hin]     [Grüne Welle]