Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Last night at 34 & Guadelupe

The nice thing about a guerrilla garden is that even though the guerrilla gardeners move on, the garden continues to grow. I love the idea of the Garden Posse leaving a footprint of growing things all around the city. That, and Garden Posse signs. We finally got our sign painted last night, and planted it firmly in the garden. As I noticed at my bus stop this morning, you can read and admire the words "Garden Posse" from across the street! It's kind of like the Great Wall of China, in some ways - visible from a great distance.

We also set up the tepee for the peas to climb, and between the sign, and the tepee, our little plot's guerrilla garden qualities have gained prominence on the street. (Yes, I will post photos soon.)

The Posse was also excited about gaining some new members, and a visit by a small girl who liked to garden at her school but did not like pizza. She did, however, enjoy playing in the rocks outside the pizza place.

Okay, but the business. We decided our next site will be a traffic triangle near Megan's home on Austin's East Side, near Webberville and Springdale. We'd like to plant a peach tree there. So Megan will be taking charge of site design, and creating a list of needed materials. This is to be standard practice for Garden Posse members who wish to host a guerrilla garden near their homes. And then we'll all collaborate on collecting these materials and planting.

We also discussed Emily's suggestion of gardening the vacant lots on East Riverside, where she was accosted by a man seeking female spit. We decided this would require additional site planning and we would make it an upcoming project. Today, however, I awoke to the news on KUT that there's a neighborhood meeting TONIGHT on a new master plan for East Riverside. The "vacant lots" were specifically mentioned as opportunities for development. Perhaps we should mention that vacant lots are also opportunities for community gardens?

The meeting is tonight in the Travis High School Cafeteria. The City of Austin has more information.

Also, I've put a poll up on the blog to vote on a Garden Posse logo. You can vote until the end of September, and the poll will be part of a continuing discussion on a logo. I think we can agree that polls don't decide anything themselves.

2 comments:

Emily said...

I won't be able to attend the meeting tonight, but I did email Erica Leak with my thoughts/suggestions about gardening the lots of E. Riverside.

I also thought of the Garden Posse this morning:

http://events.publicbroadcasting.net/kut/events.eventsmain?action=showEvent&eventID=792959

Might be helpful!

Lindsay said...

ooh, I am sorry I had to miss the veggie gardening last night. It is really nice how many gardening workshops there are in Austin. I wonder how it compares to other cities. It almost doesn't seem possible to have as more gardening events then we do in a city our size.