Yesterday was the day to begin my gardening plans for 2009. I received The Edible Garden as a gift and my gift to myself was to sign up with a permaculture forum. As I a result, I’ve become caught up in reading around the web about gardening and I’ve discovered a few surprising things!
The first surprise I read was that in some places gardening is illegal. Now I’m having a hard time finding a good source that provides legitimate details on this, but I did read that in some places, both WA and CO were mentioned, residents are not allowed to collect rainwater. Here’s a blog that states a neighborhood association in Oahu, Hawaii have made vegetable gardening illegal. While we still seem to have comparative freedom with regard to gardening in the USA, it occurs to me that there are regulations in some countries which effectively mean farmers have to purchase their seed, not collect from their own crop, because the seed patents are owned by American companies. That’s not exactly gardening, but imagine the repercussions of being told you HAVE to purchase the seed you need to grow your own food.
I’d never heard of Guerrilla Gardening before. No, it’s not a typo and this is not connected to Great Apes. I guess it’s a type of subversive gardening, where people try to reclaim and beautify neglected pieces of ground in cities around the world. Troops make such things as seed bombs to share, plant in places like roundabouts (in the UK), and even enlist the help of a donkey in their trash clear-up efforts. Yes, some of the gardeners have come up against the authorities because they do not seek permission before investing their own money and efforts in these projects. A blogger explains more about guerrilla gardening.
Maybe you’d be interested in a new garden project for your kids during 2009. I will have to come back later to this topic and leave some learning links for you.
Guerrilla Gardening and Edible Landscaping – in association with Amazon.com.
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