Adventures in Guerrilla Gardening

I’ve already shared how enamored i am with the idea of guerrilla gardening (“gardening in public spaces with or without permission.”). I’m eager to start some projects, but I want to do it right so that my efforts will not just get mowed down or uprooted. Last week I was driving around east Waco to get to know the neighborhood better and scope out potential sites for some subversive planting. I was also looking for residents with a lot of well cared for plants who might be allies in greening up their area (sharing plants, knowledge of the neighborhood, etc.).

My boss had previously explained to me what “green tagged” and “red tagged” meant for buildings. If a building is “green tagged” it cannot be occupied until certain repairs are made to the structure. If a building is “red tagged” it is condemned. No one is allowed to live in it and it will be demolished. I did see one lady sitting on the front porch of a red tagged house. I’m sure people continue to live in condemned houses when they don’t have other options.

My boss pointed out a green tagged house that had a tree falling over with ripe persimmons. In my tour through the neighborhood I decided to see if I could harvest some of the fruit. I pulled over and walked up to the gate in front of the house. There was a chain around the gate. So, I decided to nonchalantly hop over the fence. As soon as my feet touched the ground I heard the deep bark of a large dog. There was at least one resident at this property and he was guarding those persimmons. I judged how long the leash was he was on and decided the persimmons were not worth rabies or loss of limb. I quickly hopped back over the fence and went on my merry way.

There are perils to urban foraging. I think many of those dangers are helped by getting to know your neighbors and building relationships. Just beware when scoping out places to harvest that when you hop a fence you should be ready for anything. In these parts that can include shotguns and pit bulls. On the other hand, what would life be without some adventure.

The Gospel of Compost Tea

In our recent class on compost tea we looked at the benefits and the mystery of this microbial brew. Many claims are made about the benefits of compost tea. A while back our executive director had heard so much about it that he decided to look into it himself. He went to the library and did a thorough literature review to see which claims had merit and which were not backed by any evidence. What he found was that there was strong evidence for suppression and control of soil-borne and foliar fungal diseases, both when added to the soil and sprayed on the foliage of plants.

The Compost Tea Brewing Manual (which I have not read) makes claims about compost tea “adding biology” to the soil. Some people use compost tea by broadcasting it on a field to jump start the biology in the soil. Using the numbers in the book, it is clear that this claim is ridiculous. The amount of microbes in the compost tea is so miniscule that it is silly to claim it can boost the biology in an entire field. You’re better off using a broad range of holistic practices to improve your soil health and fertility overall. This is a slow process and anyone that tells you they can jump start is likely a card carrying member of the agricultural Amway. Run the other direction.

This same manual gives recipes for compost tea targeted at bacteria or fungal problems. This is where the gospel of compost tea rises to the surface. This way of thinking applies a modern scientific approach to agriculture while trying to use a holistic method. It’s new wine in old wineskins and you know what happens there right?

The whole point of compost tea is NOT that you are targeting a specific problem. In fact it should be a preventative measure applied before you have a problem. It can help with specific problems, but the benefit is the well-rounded additions to the soil that come from brewing up a mysterious batch of good bugs and microbes. The good microbes will out compete the bad ones, some of them actually parasitize the bad microbes. The brew also creates some compounds that have anti-microbial (antibiotic) properties.

Don’t we do the same thing in the church, for many of the same reasons? We target specific problems and think if we just apply the right complex of programming we will emerge victorious. Meanwhile, the whole system is deteriorating around us because we have not cared for the health of the soil and paid attention to the important things. The gospel of compost tea tells us that we should be brewing up people who look like Jesus, whose hearts beat for the things his does. Then those problems will resolve themselves. Healthy soil is made up of people who are being transformed into the likeness of Christ.

In the same way that the large scale of agricultural forces farmers to practice agriculture in ways that are fundamentally opposed to nature, mega churches and the large-scale thinking that goes on in churches forces people into practicing their faith in ways that are fundamentally opposed to the kingdom of God. The beauty is that we can take our decomposing methods and programs and pile them together until we get some good finished compost. Then we can brew up some sweet tea out of our old crappy ways.

photo from flickr user badalley.

The Gospel of Guerrilla Gardening

I’ve been reading Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto by David Tracey. It’s been fun to read, very informative and very inspiring. Many of the nation’s oldest established community gardens were started by a group of people that claimed some abandoned space or vacant lot and started planting something there. I love the idea of sneaking life into dead places. It sounds a lot like the gospel to me. It really simplifies the idea of urban gardening. Your main tool is a good shovel. All you need are seeds or plants to put in the ground, and many of these are found for free.

There is something inspiring to me about looking around you at an urban landscape and seeing, not the endless sea of concrete, but the possibility of grass breaking through the sidewalks. I’m almost halfway through the book and I can already whole-heartedly recommend it to you. It’s full of great quotes, sidebars, lists and tips. Enough to keep the most ADD of us interested and inspired. I see urban landscapes and abandoned places in a whole new light when I can imagine them becoming life-giving gardens.

Tracey’s definition of guerrilla gardening is “gardening public space with or without permission.” I like that it is both “with or without permission.” He points that a lot of times if you ask the city or owner would be happy to let you garden in certain places. It’s not about being anti-government or only working with the system. It’s about another way of life. One that transcends whether or not you have permission. I think the mark of something that truly transcends our current systems and forges a path forward to new ways of being and living might just be something that is not so much concerned about whether or not the Powers sign on to the movement, but interested in embodying the reality of another possible world. If the Powers become converted, subverted or join us along the way so much the better.

So, then my son came home from the library with a wonderful book called The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. It was guerrilla gardening for kids. It starts off with a dreary urban landscape. The kid in the story goes to play on the abandoned railroad tracks where he finds some plants growing. He begins to take care and nurture them. Slowly his garden takes over the entire railroad tracks. Eventually it spills over to the rest of the city. As everything greens up other people become gardeners too.

Planting life, beautifying ugly places and making the world a better place should never be against the law. I have no problems teaching my kids that Jesus would be a guerrilla gardener, because he most certainly would.

Farm and Food Session 9

The last session of the day was on Community Food Access. I would have left early if I wasn’t so interested in hearing this session. Here are the panelists and their topics:

WIC and Food stamps at Farmer’s Markets by Andrew Smiley from Sustainable Food Center
Farm-to School Programs by Texas Department of Agriculture
Raising Food at Home by Sari Albornoz from Sustainable Food Center

Andrew gave some basics about the WIC, WIC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), and SNAP (food stamps) programs. When the food stamp program switched from actual stamps to a swipe card it meant that people were no longer able to use their food stamp income to purchase fruits and vegetables from Farmer’s Markets. Sustainable Food Center has found a way for farmer’s markets to accept the swipe cards without it being a burden for each individual vendor. There’s also the WIC FMNP program that gives supplemental income for people to spend during the peak summer season on fresh fruits and vegetables.

I feel like this is an area where a lot of farmer’s don’t make the leap. Many have a conservative understanding of poverty and got into organic and sustainable farming for environmental reasons or better farming practices. For many of them they see their farming primarily as a business and I wonder how many make the connection with food access, poverty, hunger and obesity.

As the speaker from Texas Department of Agriculture shared about the connection between hunger and obesity, someone at my table said, “That’s why they’re hungry!” It seems their is a gap in understanding between the farmers that produce the kinds of food we want people in poverty to have access to and the reality on the ground. The reality is that hunger and obesity can exist in the same household and within the same person. This is because people who are food insecure are forced to get the most possible calories per dollar when they do have money. I mentioned previously at the USDA listening session someone from the Texas Food Banks Network pointed out that an organic apple costs $1.75 while a bag of cheese puffs costs $1.50. If you are food insecure and only have $2 in your pocket which one would you buy?

Sari from SFC shared about issues concerning community gardening, how to start them and legal issues and city ordinances. There were helpful ideas about securing land and working with cities to include community gardening in their long-range plans for the city.

I have mixed feelings about having to navigate bureaucracies to get things done. On the one hand, I say you should just put seeds in the ground and grow your own food as a way to subvert the system and stick it to the man. I also recognize that the man can help make it possible to stick your seeds in the same place all the time and build a community within a city that is supportive of gardening and farming programs in neighborhoods and schools. Hopefully someday guerrilla gardening will be nothing more than a hobby, because the Powers that be will come around to the dark side (that is the side with the darkest soil… Booyah!)

And I’m spent…

Breakout Session on Food Policy Councils

Marla Camp of Edible Austin talked about forming a Sustainable Food Policy Board in Austin. There was a lot of helpful thoughts and ideas, things to keep in mind. The thing that continues to bother me about this conversation is the lack of inclusion of what someone in the session called “disadvantaged consumers.” There are members of the Food Policy Board from Edible Austin, The Sustainable Food Center and others that claim to represent “disadvantaged consumers” on the board. However, they themselves are not disadvantaged and from what I can tell are not people of color.

Marla mentioned that the communities of need are often not communities of interest in her experience. I can imagine that is certainly true, but not a good reason not to pursue better diversity and inclusion of the people that policies affect directly and deal with hunger daily. This gap seems to me one of the biggest barriers in making food and sustainability more than an issue of the privileged elites.

Any ideas? How do we educate those most disadvantaged by our food system to advocate for themselves and see this as an important issue in their community?