Guerilla Gardening

Friends, you know that I garden. My love for gardening has been well established on this blog. You probably also know that I've got some environmentalist lefty hippie anarchist tendencies. But until now I have kept a secret from you. A defiant environmentalist's illegal gardening secret. 

That secret is this: I am a guerrilla gardener. 

Why am I telling you this now? Because it's May 1st aka Journée Internationale de la Guérilla Tournesol aka International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day! It's an annual international event started in Brussels in 2007 in which guerrilla gardeners all over the world plant sunflowers. And yes, I planted some. 

Raised fist and a quote by Ron Finley that says
"Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do. Plus you get strawberries."

What is guerrilla gardening?

Guerilla gardening is gardening on land that you don't have a legal right to. Such as an abandoned lot, a sidewalk swale, or something similar. It's taking trashed areas that aren't being cared for and helping nature and the environment by cleaning them up and reclaiming them as gardens.

But what if there's a fence blocking the place you want to garden? One cool way to guerrilla garden in locations to which you lack access are seed bombs. Seed bombs, also called green grenades, are seeds and soil held in explosive or degradable capsules. You can make them at home, carry them in your backpack, and toss them into abandoned spaces that could use a little love. My method is shown in the infographic below. The ingredients are powdered clay, perennial wildflower seeds that work in your area, compost, and water. Mix the ingredients together, roll them into balls, and fling them into places that need plants.

Infographic showing how to make a seed bomb.

I think it's a little ridiculous that we've adopted the language of war to describe something as peaceful as gardening. Strange, right? At any rate, with all this seed bomb making and throwing, perhaps I should make a leaf bandana to complete my anarchist look?

Print of a person with a green leaf over their mouth and nose like a bandana.