Guerrilla gardening

[Toddy]

The group down here got lottery funding as well as other grants.
The sad thing is that the old burgh houses in the village were all built with big gardens for folks to use to feed a family. Now most folks don't want to care for the gardens so they're dug out, covered in membrane and tons of chips or pavers.
It's a damned shame when there are folks needing land to grow food, but unless they know the person, or they come with recommendation of someone they do know, the older folks aren't going to allow some stranger to just come in and use their garden.

I'd say hold off on planting your seeds until the days start to stretch out a bit. Aye, after Imbolc should do it, though you could leave them til the end of the month. Mind it's cooler here, and the benefit of the longer days comes well on. It's surprising how fast seedlings can come good when there's enough light.

M

 

[Polecatsteve]

Did a similar thing near a "day site" I use for chilling out. Planted exactly as you did. I did clear it a bit and surround it with branches a bit. Strawberrys came out well and have spread a bit but the birds or some other creature eats them.

I planted carrots onions and potatoes (stew staples) and put coppers on the ground around them (stops slugs crawling over them).

Shame it doesn't stop rabbits or deer. I think I found 1 onion and a carrot. Fun experience tho.

I have uprooted and replanted some brambles for next year and I'll have another
Try with the root veg. Maybe make a small chicken wire cage.

As you say. For £2-3 who cares.

 

[Goatboy]

Don't know if you have a Kindle? There's a really good book called How to Prepare for Emergency & Survival Book 1 Living off the Land. By LSG Edited by Chris Breen. Some sections by our very own British Red. Has a very good section on setting up a forest garden which would help you out in your guerrilla gardening. Well worth a read and costs buttons.
Some cracking recipes too.
Worth a place in anyone's library.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Toddy]

You could do a kind of bushcraft guerrilla gardening
Plant useful things, native, that'll quietly thrive and provide useful materials.

If you have a quiet bit of burn, I can happily supply mini reed mace (might come with newts), you could plant a bank of willows along the river edge. It's the best stuff for basketry, weaving shelters, etc., and it's native, and it stabilises the banks. Non toxic and easy to grow. Flag iris on a meandering pool bit, create a bit of shelter for ducks and the like too.
Pignuts, wild garlic, wood millet are all native locally too.
Create a quiet Eden

M

 

[bikebum1975]

Possible nother idea I hadn't heard anyone mention container gardening 5 gallon paint pails. Do you have access to a porch or patio that gets a fair amount of sunlight? At least you'd be better able to keep watch on your harvest jus haul them in at night

 

[boatman]

Interesting to hear of Burgh houses and their gardens. A lot of old towns in Berkshire and Wiltshire were what was called Burgage Tenements or similar and they tended to be narrowish with long gardens. Interestingly some developed those gardens to accommodate growing businesses and the traditional ironmongers where you keep going back into the shop seemingly for ever are relics of this.

Sadly backstrip development has become common in some areas with rows of houses being built along through the old gardens. Clever trick of developers was to buy the right to do so from householders for relatively little then wait sometimes for years before enforcing their rights to develop.

To return to the topic, our garden was on this model although wider than the average and for a time when I was unable to we had one or two villagers growing veg in it with us getting a share. This suggests a possibility for the frustrated gardener that they could canvass places with both old and neglected gardens.

I have no real problem with stealth gardening except that I do worry about introducing species not native to an area, especially when the enthusiasm of the gardener wanes.

 

[Stevie777]

I have no real problem with stealth gardening except that I do worry about introducing species not native to an area, especially when the enthusiasm of the gardener wanes.

I wouldn't worry about that as that particular boat sailed a long time ago when the Lords of the land, well in and around these parts got the gardening bug in the 17th and 18th century.

 

[Stevie777]

Scarecrow..???

 

[Stevie777]

You could do a kind of bushcraft guerrilla gardening
Plant useful things, native, that'll quietly thrive and provide useful materials.

If you have a quiet bit of burn, I can happily supply mini reed mace (might come with newts), you could plant a bank of willows along the river edge. It's the best stuff for basketry, weaving shelters, etc., and it's native, and it stabilises the banks. Non toxic and easy to grow. Flag iris on a meandering pool bit, create a bit of shelter for ducks and the like too.
Pignuts, wild garlic, wood millet are all native locally too.
Create a quiet Eden

M

If i knew what i was looking at i would bet my bottom dollar that everything you just mentioned thrives along the south Calder water. Now that i have my books on trees, mushrooms, and edible plants i intend to find out exactly what i've been walking through/past all these years.

I know where i can get Hazel nuts, horse chestnuts, raspberries, blackberries, other berries i dont know the name of, wild strawbs, Goosegogs, at least three different types of Mushrooms i'm comfortable eating and some other edibles. roll on next years harvest with my newly found knowledge/books.

 

[bigbear]

Good luck Sir, and Toddy, that is a shame, but console yourself with the good you did.

 

[Adze]

Do you like tomatoes? Those little vine ripened cherry jobbies will self seed, allegedly. Apparently you get quite a few in/around/near sewage treatment sites (fig trees too, read that for what you will) so you never know, you might be able to carry the proto-tomatoes in completely concealed in the best smuggling fashion... if you catch my drift

 

[beezer]

i will second that bigbear

 

[Stevie777]

Do you like tomatoes? Those little vine ripened cherry jobbies will self seed, allegedly. Apparently you get quite a few in/around/near sewage treatment sites (fig trees too, read that for what you will) so you never know, you might be able to carry the proto-tomatoes in completely concealed in the best smuggling fashion... if you catch my drift

I love Tomatoes. When the river Calder bursts it's banks the heavy rainfall usually blows the lids off the main, not fit for purpose, sewerage pipes that are conveniently placed over the river as well... two burds with the one stone is my thinking now.

 

[boatman]

Re non-native plants, it can be a problem. Noticed those wildflower seed packets being sold? Hopefully they are filled with British grown seeds but not all are and it would be wrong to create an area growing them where they hadn't developed naturally. For example see that crazy scheme to plant poppies for remembrance on all sorts of uncultivated areas.

 

[Toddy]

I noticed that too Boatman. The wild seed mixes had plants I knew just didn't 'belong' somehow. It turns out that they are American prairie flowers. They do very well along dry, exposed roadside verges though, so they're routinely added into those mixes.
I really don't think they ought to be, simply because of the potential for problems further down the line.

M

 

[Goatboy]

Bit like when I was studying to be a forester, we had a talk from a civil engineer who had worked on motorway sidings. Some of the designers picked trees because they looked pretty. A huge stretch of motorway drainage had to be redone as they'd planted saughs (willows) and the invasive roots had clogged everything up.
Also there were folk spreading inappropriate seed mixes on areas of SSSI's which kinda wound up the botanists as it endangered the fragile ecosystems.
Still a little tinkering in non special areas does no real harm and can improve it a whole heap. Been known to plant stuff that'll look after itself in the woods myself. The fruit bushes and rhubarb have done pretty well.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[troyka]

I think we are way past being able to protect against none native plants there isn't a time in our recorded history where we have not imported plants seeds and associated bugs.

 

[Toddy]

I think time and place though, and we know the problems that can arise now.
Why not plant truly native seeds in those mixes for instance ? It's not as though we don't have chalk/seashore plants that are used to challenging conditions.

M

 

[Arya]

This is one of the reasons I love this forum! All these funny, creative ideas people get. Guerrilla gardening! The name itself gives me a grin.
I´ve never heard about it until now, but I love the idea. I hope you are successful and wish you all the best of luck!

 

[Macaroon]

I think we are way past being able to protect against none native plants there isn't a time in our recorded history where we have not imported plants seeds and associated bugs.

Just because we've done a lot of negative things with non-native stuff doesn't in any way mean we have to keep doing more; there are good native-only seed mixes for lots of applications so why not use them, I say.