Here’s an intriguing idea: guerrilla gardening, “gardening in public urban spaces with or without permission.” It includes
fly-by-night plantings in urban wastelands, lobbing “seed grenades” into fenced-off empty lots, planting trees in the middle of nowhere, covering traffic circles with native ground cover, sowing edible plants in school-yards, draping lamp posts with decorative creepers, developing community gardens and empowering disaffected youth by reintroducing them to the joys of dirtying one’s hands in the soil.
It’s all described in the book Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto, by David Tracey, which has been getting some good reviews. We’ve blogged before about the many benefits of school food gardens. They’re great ways of teaching kids about agrobiodiversity, as well as providing healthy, nutritious food for their snacks. We just recently passed the point where 50% of the world’s population lives in cities. I imagine we’ll become increasingly familiar with — and thankful for — the activities of urban guerrilla gardeners.