The tomatoes in my garden are little revolutionaries.
Our basil plants are anti-capitalist.
Each day they remind me that the world i’m working towards is growing, steadily.

Gardening and food production provide the sustanance which makes activism real. To eat conventionally grown food, grown by multinationals, fossil fuels, poor workers rights, water and resource wasteage feels hypocritical whilst agitating for a world which isn’t reliant upon capitalism. The change we create starts here, now, with us. Like preparing healthy, fertile soil for the gardens of the future.

Guerilla gardening involves growing plants in public spaces without council permission. Guerilla gardening can take as many different forms as there are cracks in the pavement. Some people like to plant natives, addressing issues such as destruction of indigenous land and native species. Others like to beautify the urban landscape with flowers and colourful plants. Personally, I’m interested in growing fruit and vegetables and providing a local source of organic food for the community. Most people don’t stop to consider which country their coconut milk comes from, or how their lettuces come to be. If you ask most kids where milk comes from, they’ll probably say the supermarket. We’ve unlearnt practical life skills such as food growing, to the extent that we don’t even know what season plants grow and come to fruit, what climate they grow in or even how to identify what different fruit and vegetable plants look like. We’ve learnt to rely upon the capitalist system for all our needs. However they only have as much power as we give them. They rely on consumers just as much as we rely upon them. As long as we look to corporations and governments to provide for all our daily needs, they’ll retain their power over us. If we intend to create a different, less damaging system, we need to relearn life skills and provide locally for ourselves, and our communities.

Guerilla gardening transfers unused sections of the urban landscape into community hands, creating the potential to inspire action and create healthy communities. It creates community ownership of communal living space, challenging and altering mainstream assumptions of private ownership. Gardens bring people together to learn, share, relax and communicate with each other, directly opposing the alienation of capitalist society.

Guerilla gardening is a tangible action, it’s a positive action. It’s empowering and rewarding, and demonstrates how quickly change can happen, with just some soil, some seeds and a small bunch of people. The garden we built in the park near my house surpassed my expectations in the effects it had upon our community. People stopped by to see what we were doing, chatted, offered tips and support and even joined in. They were excited about the new space we were creating, unphased by the lack of council consultation, even supportive that we didn’t want to engage with the beurocracy. The new space is so much more than a few herbs in a corner of the park. We’ve created a space for community members to meet and communicate. It’s a space which calls into question the very nature of conventional food, where food comes from, how that happens, what processes it goes through, which elite few benefit and why that’s the case.

Guerilla Gardening is one tactical tile in a colourful mosaic of dissent. It is one of many tools providing the infrastructure we need to autonomously organise our communities. It’s fun and practical, and moves our communities towards being self sustained, self directed entities.

Some tips to plant a guerilla garden:
*choose a spot
The nature of the plot depends on the statement you want to make and what you want to grow. Consider soil, polution, water, sun and accessibility.
*choose your plants
The type of plants you grow depends on your aims. eg. Pretty flowers/food producing/natives. To grow out there in the urban environment the plants you choose need to be tough, to survive without being pampered. Read up on plant varieties to learn when they need to be planted, what environment they like and which other plants they will grow well with.
*water
consider where your plants will get their water. especially at the beginning, help your plants adjust to their new homes with water. Water savers (little beads from the hardware shop which absorb and release water to the plant over time) can help . Mulching also helps to retain water.
*community
your close community as well as the wider community are your friends. Talk to people and let them know what you’re doing. Chances are people will offer to help you out and take on the space as their own. I reckon this is the best way to maintain a garden long term. Lots of hands make for light work.

for pages of my gardening zine online, see http://www.sustenance.net.au/Sustenance/index2.html
or email me for a copy