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  • From: Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Censorship: was Encouraging "volunteer" crops in urban landscapes
  • Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:07:04 -0500

Lawrence,
I sincerely beg your pardon. I didn't stop to think that you might feel implicated. I didn't mean that at all and I apologize for any confusion.
The prospective "censor" I had in mind wasn't you but rather someone like my server 'Concast'.
Keith

On 11/15/2010 2:46 AM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
On 11/14/2010 10:37 PM, Keith Johnson wrote:
Send failed. Trying again. This has happened MANY times in the last few months. Is anyone else having this problem?

Let's see now...you appear to be subscribed to this list as:
keithdj@mindspring.com with normal mail delivery options set
... which means that if you address an email to:
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
...it will be received by the list host and posted to all subscribers
...so, did you follow that procedure?
Are you spam filtering out mail from this list?
Is your ISP spam filtering out email from this list?
Do you operate your own computer or does someone else do it for you?
Is there any reason you can't find out if the problem is on your end
before spamming the list with accusations of censorship? Putting "Censorship"
at the beginning of your subject line would usually be considered provocative
and likely to generate a separate and useless thread all its own.

There is no censorship going on in this list now and there will never be unless someone starts
another flamewar.

The entire list is mirrored in two other locations which I have set up, so I am concerned
about the integrity of conversations that develop here.

The first 4 times I sent this to the list it never made it. Maybe it was because it had the word "guerilla" in the
subject line.

There's no content filtration of messages based on words or phrases. No point in that.

Keep in mind that everything posted to this forum goes into the message archives to remain there permanently. There
is no provision to remove unwanted posts.

I never heard back from anyone about their own local "volunteer" crops, though I'm curious to compare notes.

I think I remember seeing your post a while back and noting that it should get good feedback.
In fact, here it is:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [permaculture] Encouraging "volunteer" crops in urban landscapes
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:26:58 -0400
From: Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>
Reply-To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
To: Permaculture ibiblio <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, Plants for a future list <pfaf@yahoogroups.com>

In Bloomington, IN, there are lots of community gardens, a new community
orchard, urban farmers, farmers markets, university gardeners, local
seed growers / sellers cooperation, increasing levels of garden / farmer
training and support.

We don't have any "official" guerrilla gardening groups locally (that I
know of) but as a seed saver I find myself thinking about all the things
in my garden that could grow on their own, or with little support, in
wilder urban niches. I have in mind a diversity of plants with multiple
yields and the creation of mixed seed / cutting collections of locally
adapted, low maintenance, often self-sowing, occasionally high
nutritional value, beneficial insect / bee / butterfly attracting,
colorful, fragrant, sometimes perennial, economically valuable,
nitrogen-fixing, wildlife food / habitat, and mineral-accumulating types
of plants that could also partially self-employ those who establish /
manage / harvest them.

Maybe a tall order but doable, I think..

A few of the plants that would lend themselves to some neglect under
less-cared-for conditions in my local (going on zone 7 [was zone 5 25
years ago]) list include (in no particular order)

amaranth,
magenta lamb's quarters,
cilantro,
dill,
carrot (especially the cosmic red and purples which bloom in rosy pinks
and are swarmed by beneficials),
walking or Egyptian onion,
leek,
chard,
lettuce,
radish,
ground cherry (Physalis spp.), tomatillo,
broom corn (Sorghum),
wheat,
long beans,
lablab beans (hyacinth bean),
sunflowers,
balsam impatiens (I grew them as understory in the asparagus and
scattered through the garden and they shaded out weedy competition
beautifully, butterflies and pollinators love them, simple and
effortless to weed),
cup plant (Sylphium),
indigo (Indigofera tinctoria [polygonaceae], I have white- and
pink-flowered types of this beautiful blue-dye plant that self-sow in
the greenhouse and outdoors);
the moschata branch of the cucurbits (solid stem, borer resistant) and
includes tromboncino, butternut and others;
orach (Chenopodium),
motherwort (careful, succeeds easily in poor soil),
celosias (very elegant, colorful and beneficial hosts),
garlic (plant cloves or bulbils),
field / winter / Austrian peas,
kale,
collards,
senna (short woody, N-fix, bee forage, yellow flowers for 1-2 months),
baptisia (blue, yellow and white varieties, perennial, N-fix),
Amorpha fruticosa ("false indigo", bee forage, fodder, mulch, N - highly
recommended),
cherry tomatoes,
buckwheat,
liatris,
hollyhocks,
zinnias,
marigolds,
hibiscus,
sweet potatoes,
stonefruit,
paw paws,
service berry (from seed and side shoots),
currant / gooseberry (from cuttings),
thornless blackberries and
che fruit (melon berry / Chinese mulberry, fig / mulberry family, can be
grafted onto wild Osage orange [Maclura]).
Apples could be grafted onto crab apples and hawthornes, pears on to
ornamental pears.

What would your local lists look like?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any groups like these (below) happening in your regions?
(Snip) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_gardening
Greenaid

Greenaid is a Los Angeles based organization founded in 2010 by Daniel
Phillips and Kim Karlsrud of Common Studio. The organization converts
vintage gumball machines to dispense seedbombs, a combination of clay,
compost and region-specific seeds. Once dispensed, seedbombs are tossed
or planted in any area that may benefit from wildflowers. Greenaid
partners with business owners, educators and citizens to distribute
seedbomb vending machines in various communities worldwide. With
region-specific seedbomb mixes, Greenaid aims to integrate and beautify
rather than disrupt traditionally bland urban areas such as sidewalks
and highway medians. In July 2010, Greenaid received $10,398 in funding
from the Kickstarter community. This funding will be used to spread the
initiative to new locations and support current operations.
Utah

In Northern Utah, apple trees commonly grow along the banks of canals.
Asparagus grows along the smaller ditch banks. Many of these plants were
seeded 150 years ago by the workers who dug the canals, by burying their
lunch apple core in the freshly dug soil or by surreptitiously spreading
seeds along a new ditchbank. Guerrilla gardening continues today, as
individuals secretly plant fruit trees, edible perennials, and flowers
in parks, along bike trails, etc. Some guerrilla gardeners do so for the
purpose of providing food. For example, the Tacamiche banana plantation
workers in Honduras illegally grew vegetables on the abandoned
plantation land, rather than leave with the plantation's closure in 1995.
Pure Genius!!

One high-profile example of guerrilla gardening took place in May 1996,
when about 500 activists affiliated with The Land is Ours, including the
journalist George Monbiot, occupied 13 acres (53,000 m2) of derelict
land belonging to the Guinness company on the banks of the River Thames
in Wandsworth, South London. Their action aimed to highlight what they
described as "the appalling misuse of urban land, the lack of provision
of affordable housing and the deterioration of the urban environment."
A community grew up on the site called "Pure Genius!!" (named after the
Guinness advertising slogan). They lived there for five and a half
months before being evicted.
Have på en nat

Later, on 1 July 1996, Have på en nat ("Garden in a night") was made by
the Danish Økologiske Igangsættere ("Organic starters").

An empty piece of land in the middle of the city at Guldbergsgade in
Nørrebro, Copenhagen, Denmark, was transformed into a garden in a single
night. About 1000 people took part in the project.
May Day 2000

On May Day 2000, Reclaim the Streets organised a mass guerrilla
gardening action in Parliament Square, London. After a carnivalesque
procession with a samba band and a Critical Mass bike ride from Hyde
Park, thousands of guerrilla gardeners occupied the square and planted
vegetables and flowers. A maypole was erected, around which many of the
gardeners danced. Banners hung in the square reading "Resistance is
Fertile" (a pun on futile), "Let London Sprout", "Capitalism is Pants",
and "The Earth is a Common Treasury for All", the latter being a quote
from the seventeenth-century Digger Gerrard Winstanley. An Indymedia
public access terminal was set up in the new allotment, and the statue
of Winston Churchill was given a green turf mohican. The perpetrator (an
ex-British soldier) was fined for his vandalism of the Churchill statue.
International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day 1 May

In 2007 guerrilla gardeners in Brussels, known as The Brussels Farmers
[2], declared 1 May International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day.
This is a day in which guerrilla gardeners around the world plant
sunflower seeds in public places within their neighborhood (in practice
this event is limited to regions of the northern hemisphere where the
climate and season are most appropriate). Participants in that first
year included Brussels, London and Bordeaux. Every year since then the
occasion has gained momentum and been promoted through the
GuerrillaGardening.org network and in 2010 more than 5000 signed up to
take part.
Leaf Street Community Garden

Leaf Street is an acre of land in Hulme, Manchester, England, that was
once an urban street until turfed over by Manchester City Council. Local
people, facilitated by Manchester Permaculture Group, took direct action
in turning the site into a thriving community garden.

Abahlali baseMjondolo
The South African shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has
planted gardens in a number of their affiliated settlements[8], such as
the Kennedy Road settlement.

GuerrillaGardening.org
GuerrillaGardening.org was created in October 2004 by Richard Reynolds
as a blog of his solo guerrilla gardening outside Perronet House, a
neglected council block in London's Elephant and Castle district. At the
time, his motivations were simply those of a frustrated gardener looking
to beautify the neighborhood, but his website attracted the interest of
fellow guerrilla gardeners in London and beyond, as well as the world's
media. Reynolds's guerrilla gardening has now reached many pockets of
South London, and news of his activity has inspired people around the
world to get involved. He also works alongside other troops, some local
and some who travel to participate. He has also guerrilla-gardened in
Libya, Berlin and Montreal. Today, GuerrillaGardening.org is still his
blog but also includes tips, links and thriving community boards where
guerrilla gardeners from around the world are finding supportive locals.
His book, On Guerrilla Gardening, which describes and discusses activity
in 30 different countries, was published by Bloomsbury Publishing in the
UK and USA in May 2008."Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto" by David
Tracey has accounts of community garden leaders and public officials.
"Guerrilla Gardening: How to Create Gorgeous Gardens for Free" by
Barbara Pallenberg is a how-to on gardening that was "everything you
wanted to know about gardening but were afraid to ask"

Early on Saturday, April 26, a team of volunteers installed forty-nine
small birdhouses along the entire length of Hanover Avenue in the Fan
District of Richmond, Virginia. They were built from untreated lumber
and were specifically sized to provide a safe haven for some of
Richmond's local songbirds, including wrens, blue birds, and finches,
from the unwelcome non-native species such as the Starling and the
European Barn Swallow.

Additionally, the guerrilla gardening movement has been catching on in
Richmond, Virginia. In 2006, Style Weekly reported an act of guerrilla
gardening in an alley off Hanover Avenue adjacent to the new birdhouses.
Also, a group called Tricycle Gardens has begun the reclamation of
blighted urban spaces in some of Richmond's poorest neighborhoods. Their
efforts are bringing locally grown food and a better understanding of
the interconnectedness humans have with nature to the city.

The volunteers who installed the birdhouses have asked members of the
community to tend the houses in the fall once the breeding season is
complete. The houses have been designed with a hinged right panel for
easy cleaning.

Kew Bridge Eco Village, London, England
In July 2009 land rights activists moved on to a derelict piece of land
near Kew Gardens in West London. Kew Bridge Eco Village is a small
community of squatters who have grown vegetables and built basic wooden
dwellings on the land.
Guerrilla gardening in Australia

Guerrilla gardening is prominent in Melbourne where most of the inner
northern suburbs have community vegetable gardens; land adjoining rail
lines has undergone regeneration of the native vegetation, including
nature strips. There are a few minor disputes between guerrilla
gardeners in Melbourne, with most falling into one of two groups: those
concerned most with native planting and those concerned most with
communal food growing. However, people with differing opinions still
work together without dispute.[14]

There is a small community group in Melbourne called "Permablitz" who
gather regularly to design and construct suburban vegetable gardens for
free, in an effort to educate residents in Melbourne on how to grow
their own food and better prepare them if/when food prices become too
expensive.

Australian Network 10's show Guerrilla Gardeners featured a team of
gardeners who make over areas of council owned property without them
knowing.

--

Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47407
(812) 335-0383
- Permaculture Activist <http://www.permacultureactivist.net/>
- Permaculture Trading Post <http://www.permaculturetradingpost.com/>
- Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting <http://www.permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html>

- Local Growers Guild <http://www.localgrowers.org/>
- Permaculture & Regenerative Design News Blog <http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/>
- Permaculture Politics Blog <http://permaculturepolitics.blogspot.com/>

- Transition Indiana <http://transitionindiana.blogspot.com/> - Blog <http://transitionindiana.blogspot.com/>

- TransitionBloomington.org <http://transitionbloomington.org/>

- TransitionBloomington.ning <http://transitionbloomingtonind.ning.com/>
- The Gardeners' World Blog <http://theecosystem.blogspot.com/>
- Renaissance Farm and Permaculture Center <http://bloomingtongrowers.locallygrown.net/growers/show/212>
- Bloomington Permaculture Growers Cooperative <http://bloomingtongrowers.locallygrown.net/>
- Bloomington Permaculture Guild Blog <http://bloomingtonpermacultureguild.blogspot.com/> - Calendar <http://my.calendars.net/bloomingtonpccal/>
- Switch to Solar Power the Easy Way <http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower>





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