Guerrilla gardening

[Stevie777]

"Guerrilla gardening is the act of gardening on land that the gardeners do not have the legal rights to utilize, such as an abandoned site, an area that is not being cared for, or private property".

No that i have that out the road has anyone ever partook in some Guerrilla gardening. ?

I have recently bought some seeds to sow next year. Carrots, Pumpkin, Leaks, Cabbage, Cauliflower, lettuce, broccoli and Beetroot.

I dont have a Garden at my disposal (top floor flat) to plant the seeds, so i was thinking of becoming a Guerrilla gardener.

I have a few places already mapped out a few miles away so watering regularly would be a problem. I would solely be relying on a river bursting it's banks occasionally and rainfall and me occasionally watering as and when i feel it's been a bit dry.

The Soil at my chosen spot is good, really good for veggies. Soft, dark with some sand added when the burn bursts it's banks.
The Plan is simple. poke holes on the soil, plant seeds, cover up, then let nature do it's thing.

My only concern is Animals, slugs, buttheads etc. I cant prepare the soil like a garden neatly layed out lines etc. Anyone walking past might notice a freshly dug garden in the middle of nowhere and the game is a bogey. I'm hoping to get some harvest, mostly for when i do over nighters at or near the chosen spot later in the year. i spent all of £2 on the seeds so failure is no big deal.

So has anyone ever had a go at Guerrilla gardening, if so what was the success rate on planting then letting nature do it's thing..??

PS, Before the righteous bounce in with the usual mince. The Area i have chosen can only benefit from me adding a few food plots here and there. who's land?...Who knows.? I doubt very much whoever owns it has ever set foot on it. Probably land gifted to North Lanarkshire council by Lord Belhaven or Stewart for the people of Lanarkshire to use.

This is Scotland we are talking about, We are a good bit more liberal up here as far as land ownership and use goes.

As long as no harm is done, nothing is destroyed. all is well.

 

[NoName]

yeah good luck!
nobody owns the earth

 

[Stevie777]

yeah good luck!
nobody owns the earth

Thanks..I'm pretty sure the land was once own by Lord Hamilton. later gifted to the people of Clydesdale via Clydesdale council. It's ground waaaay out the road. Take a bit to get to. i have installed a rope to get to the rivers edge and back up. great wee spot. plenty sunlight in the high summer, south facing. deep in a valley with a cliff on the west side and a wooded slope on the east.

 

[NoName]

sounds super nice
good luck!

 

[johntarmac]

Unless you choose your varieties very carefully I suspect the bugs won't leave much for you and pigeons, rabbits, deer or whatever else lurks about the area will have the rest.

Leaving it to nature is exactly that, unfortunately nature will more than likely beat you to it.

Be interesting to hear how you get on however.

 

[Stevie777]

Unless you choose your varieties very carefully I suspect the bugs won't leave much for you and pigeons, rabbits, deer or whatever else lurks about the area will have the rest.

Leaving it to nature is exactly that, unfortunately nature will more than likely beat you to it.

Be interesting to hear how you get on however.

Yeah as i said, I'll be leaving it to nature..£2 is no big loss. Maybe the wildlife will leave me a carrot or two?...i plan on planting spuds as well. it's an experiment more than anything.

 

[Toddy]

You could seriously boost your chances of a crop by starting the seeds in the house (any windowsill will do, and poundland and wilkinsons sell loads of cheap trays, etc.,) and planting them out as seedlings where you have 'trimmed' the groundcover
After that all they'd really need is weeded around, maybe some of those slug pellets that dry them up rather than poison the world.
Tatties are pretty good for guerilla gardening, they just look like 'greenery' unless folks know what they are, and if the soils as friable as you say, they'll easily happ up. You can get some brilliant crops of guerillas spuds and deer generally don't munch them either.
If it's a sunny bit then garlic's good too, so are many brassicas (but you have to watch them for caterpillars, and deer)
Wheat and oats and barley will grow in astonishing places, and will crop well too. Might not be a field load, but it's an interesting endeavour
Neeps are better put in as fairly big seedlings, I have no joy with radishes or carrots, the damned slugs get them every time here
Would you like some raspberry canes ? I have Autumn fruiting ones that are still producing a handful of good fruit every day, even now in the middle of November. I can give you enough wild strawberry roots to ramble around the river banking, and they're native, always have a sweet welcome, and don't need any work other than putting them into the ground.

The site across the burn where I 'planted' stuff, is now a huge great walled off building site, and they're putting up sixty flats
They dug out the elders and smothered the meadowsweet under ten feet of soil and hardcore. Wonderful rich site, and it's just gone, buried and dead.
Enjoy your wee bit of riverbank

M

 

[TeeDee]

Stevie , have a look here mate - site hooks up land owners to potential 'workers'.

http://www.landshare.net/

 

[rik_uk3]

I read an article about Spain and its massive unemployment. With the collapse of the building industry and hundreds of thousands of empty properties and building sites, many locals have started growing fruit and vegetables on these plots.

 

[troyka]

I've done a fair bit of guerrilla gardening in my time, mostly in urban areas and a few parks. I've planted fruit bushes from pound shops as well as seed bombing once planted I've mostly let them grow with no input and just enjoyed them till harvest. I've also planted in plain view and tended regularly. Its amazing what you can do in a high vis vest.

 

[Stevie777]

Yeah Mary, I was thinking of giving them a head start just after Christmas. As i have to walk 3 miles mostly through wooded areas, abseil (nothing Bear Grylls style) down a wee slope, i cant see me doing it with loads of plants in soil in bags. Fruit trees...now you are talking. I have plenty rasps and wild strwbs about here i could take a cutting from then replant at my site.

Sorry to here about you own Guerrilla gardening plot...Must have hurt watching them destroy it.

 

[Stevie777]

Stevie , have a look here mate - site hooks up land owners to potential 'workers'.

http://www.landshare.net/

I'll have a shifty later mate, thanks for that. I did consider approaching the council for some spare land with access to water..ie a tap. but my idea of using rain and river might just work. well work enough for me to get a handfull of veggies. If the Foxes, Deer, Rabbits and Badgers and bugs all get fat on the crops then that's fine also.

It might even make my own overnight experience at my chosen site even better with plenty of wildlife choosing to set up camp nearby also.

 

[Stevie777]

I've done a fair bit of guerrilla gardening in my time, mostly in urban areas and a few parks. I've planted fruit bushes from pound shops as well as seed bombing once planted I've mostly let them grow with no input and just enjoyed them till harvest. I've also planted in plain view and tended regularly. Its amazing what you can do in a high vis vest.

Sneaky Sneaky... like your style Sir..

 

[Toddy]

Wee rucksack on your back and the seedlings wrapped up in newspaper inside a carrier bag in the rucksack Tidy.


This was the other side of the burn, before they started building "Alcatraz" I'll take some photos of the 'new look' and post them just to complete the thread.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57397

No badgers, no deer, hardly any squirrels, no weasels, no foxes, no ducks, no woodpeckers….all just gone. The insects too, very few butterflies this year, very few dragonflies, even the bees were quieter.
No elders, no meadowsweet, no flag iris, no yarrow, clover, vetches, dockens, pignuts, weld, wild oregano, or a thousand others. Just a big wall and fifteen feet of hardcore.

M

 

[Stevie777]

Man, you must be gutted Mary...That place reminds me of where i used to stay. 2 mins from my old house and i was on a path just like yours only the Burn was the South Calder water. fishing and wildlife heaven. now i need to walk 2-3 miles to fish that same river only further downstream now.

In saying that this is my fifth move in 30 years and it's the furthest i have been from the Calder. Does that Burn of yours run straight into the clyde. Have you ever drank from it.?

Aye Rucksack could be the mode of transport for veggies. Any ideas when i should start planting in the house. I only want them around six inches in length when transporting them. i'm guessing February 1st. ready to transplant in mid March. ?

 

[demographic]

I've done a fair bit of guerrilla gardening in my time, mostly in urban areas and a few parks. I've planted fruit bushes from pound shops as well as seed bombing once planted I've mostly let them grow with no input and just enjoyed them till harvest. I've also planted in plain view and tended regularly. Its amazing what you can do in a high vis vest.

Vizzy Vests are the most effective urban camouflage known to mankind

 

[Stevie777]

Vizzy Vests are the most effective urban camouflage known to mankind

Hi Visibility seems to be some sort of invisibility cloak.

 

[bearbait]

Hi Visibility seems to be some sort of invisibility cloak.

Perhaps due to perceived authority syndrome, with which we are inculcated from a young age?

 

[Toddy]

The burn rises as a fresh water spring on the castle golf course, runs away from the Clyde, is piped under the main road, open along behind our houses, and then piped pretty much until it reaches the motorway. It runs along side that and then joins the Powburn and both run into the Clyde at Uddingston, just before the North Calder joins at Greyfriars/Daldowie.

The golf course bit used to be very clean indeed, the area is noted for the quality of water from the springs, but behind our houses is where the old mineral railway line ran that supplied the Victorian gasworks. The burn's banks are made up of clinker, bit like an old bing, really not drinking water unless desperate, but over the years the hedgelines grew, and expanded, the burn ran clean again and wildlife thrived. The sloping land they're building on had been called the Hay Field for over forty years that I know of. There's a patch of Scots Pine woodland, an old remnant, at the top end of the street too.

There'll be a Greenspace officer and a Countryside Ranger who will nominally be 'responsible' for your bit of woods. If you get on good speaking terms with them (and they're genuinely happy to have folks keep an eye on areas) you might find they'll be very helpful. A local group here got many, many, thousands in grants to set up allotments.
Not quite guerilla gardening, but, there's no shortage of land that could be used where you stay if there were others interested.

M

 

[Stevie777]

I've met a guy a few times from a trust that was set up by the Stewart family in the Murdostoun estate up at Newmains and Allanton.

He just asked us to make sure we tidied up behind us, marked a few trees and left.

That was 30 years ago. still see trees marked now and then but they never seem to do anything with the trees other than number them.

They dont plant anything or appear to have any sort of management plan going on. Lots of trees have fallen down, blown over in storms etc...who knows. Seems like a waste of woods to me.

It would be ideal to know who owns what and approach them for some land though. As you say, Get a group together and apply for any grants going, but in these austerity driven times i doubt very much they will have spare cash just laying around...lots of people being laid off within North Lanarkshire council at present.