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ACT2 - Semi-guerilla Gardening in Aro Valley

I used to see these random, grass-filled tubs every day when I was studying at University. When I moved in to the neighborhood seven years later I decided it was definitely time to do something about it.

I thought they would make great micro-community vegetable gardens, providing free, local food. But they needed a lot of work before that could happen.

I cleared away all the bottles, rubbish, rocks and glass and weeded the tubs.

At first I just planted the two plants that I have never managed to kill (geraniums and dahlias) to make sure that things could grow in the tubs without the clumps of the gra**** root structure.

It worked!

We then planted what I thought were zucchini plants (actually buttercup pumpkins!). Although they were very slow to take off, the buttercups have been a success, there are at least two that will make it to maturity.

I then wallpapered the tubs to increase their visibility and (hopefully) value to the community.
You can see photos of my progress on Flickr:
The weeding and planting of the tubs
The cleaning and decorating of the tubs

This is very much a work in progress, and it will take a while for the tubs to become known as a source of food. Here's my progress so far:

So the next steps are:

A****s how the buttercups go - how many made it to harvest?
Ask people in the neighborhood whether they used them and what other veges they'd like to have available.
Figure out how to get larger crops in smaller spaces.
Involve more people.
Re-plant the dahlia tub with a winter crop.

Tags: ACT2, community, garden, gardening, nz, pumpkin

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Comment by kenneth declercq on March 20, 2010 at 10:28pm: That's a great idea, it could bring together the neighbourhood, it looks nice than the old tubes, you'll have your own vegetable source...

Great and creative initiative!!!

Comment by Ken Eklund on March 21, 2010 at 8:01pm: You should talk to Agent Sayel Cortes, he's looking for fellow guerrilla gardeners!

Comment by Sayel Cortes on March 22, 2010 at 12:07am: Hey great action!!! I wish I was better at gardering to do that hohoho. I shall start to learn.

Comment by Sayel Cortes on March 22, 2010 at 12:07am: btw... thanks Ken for the reference =)

Comment by Canzonett on April 18, 2010 at 5:27pm: Guerilla gardening itself is a great idea - particularly if you can use areas for it that no one else seems to care about!