The Non-Gardener's Guide to Turning Un(der)-used Space into a Productive Garden: Pt. 3

Don Boes shared this poem with us after last week's presentation and I asked him if I could post it as part of the continuing exhibition of pictures of our guerrilla gardening activities.

On The Anniversary of the Beginning of the War
by Don Boes

At least we can journey to the mall.
At least we can make the commitment
to think less about thinking less.

In the food court, the menus
facilitate our meaningful decisions.
And when the sun retreats beyond the bypass

we can’t be bothered. We celebrate
by consuming and we grieve the same way
and what we can’t consume we pretend to consume.

In my weaker moments, I am partial to devilled eggs.

The concourse is not to be feared.
Those mannequins, although they do not
resemble us, are not our enemies.
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One of many lessons of last year (our first year) was that garlic should be planted when it is first starting to cool down, so that it can sprout in the last days of sunshine and more easily survive the winter. Here is some garlic poking up through the snow at People's Garden: Cheeks



We mentioned that we will continue, when possible, to expand the People's Gardens. Here is the latest addition to People's Garden: Cheeks



Our second garden People's Garden: Victory (inspired by the WWII Victory Gardens and a direct response to President Bush's notion that we should consume, rather than conserve, in supporting the Iraq/Terror War). Marchman discovered this site on his walks and took the time to talk to the people nearby to let them know what we were doing. This is a diverse, working class neighborhood and the garden is located in a culvert that borders the railroad tracks. Another early lesson, do not use railroad ties because they are coated with creosote (sp?) that can leach into the soil. We usually build above-ground and layer newspaper under the soil we bring into the gardening site. We later replaced the ties...