Guerrilla gardening

Guerrilla gardening usually involves a group of people who take the
initiative to make better use of unused or neglected private or public land. Sometimes the gardeners strike under the cover of darkness and other times they are out in the open, digging and planting flowers, veggies, herbs, fruit and nut trees.

It is a kind of political gardening that addresses the themes of sustainable food production, food sovereignty, land ownership and importance of connecting people together around food issues in our often disjointed world where people often barely know or speak to their own neighbours.

Real Food Guerrilla gardening day

The photos below show how the real food group undertook a small project to transform a small area of private land into a small food community garden for local residents. There is a growing amount of guerrilla gardening activity in Melbourne and around the world and our planting is far from the first to take place in the area.

In the beginning there was grass.

In the middle there was newspaper, pea straw and some dusty workers.

In the end there was a keyhole garden bed with rainbow chard, kale, broadbeans, an apple tree, lettuce, cabbage, peas, rocket, oregano, bok choy, parsley and herbs.

We said 'hello' to the local residents and had some great conversations with passers by who were intrested and generally supportive of the initiative. We hope the garden will provide food, fun, enjoyment and and a sense of community for the local residents. It will also serve as an example to motivate other passionate people in the neighbourhood. 'YES' we can work together to grow our own food and create a sense of place, a sense of community.

Want to know where we planted? Want to have a guerrilla garden in your area? Contact us to learn how to get started or you may also find the Permablitz crew helpful.

For some background on guerrilla gardening visit Guerrilla gardening in the UK or check out the wikipedia guerrilla gardening site.