Beginners Gardening

www.guerrillagardening.org Watch guerilla gardeners transform Elephant & Castle, London. When Richard Reynolds began planting flowers secretly at night outside his tower block in South London, he had no idea that he was part of a growing global movement committed to combating the forces of neglect, land shortage and apathy towards public spaces. But before long, his blog GuerrillaGardening.org had attracted other guerrillas from around the world to share their experiences of the horticultural frontline, and is now a focal point for guerrilla gardeners everywhere, with over 4000 people enlisted as recruits. On Guerrilla Gardening is Reynolds’s lively, colourful treatise on why people illicitly cultivate land and how to do it yourself. From discreetly beautifying corners of Montreal to striving for green communal space in Berlin and sustainable food production in San Francisco, from Christmas trees on London roundabouts to the political agitations of landless workers in Brazil, Reynolds charts a battle that people worldwide are fighting on many different fronts. Along the way he unearths the movement’s notable historic advances by seventeenth-century English radicals, a nineteenth-century American entrepreneur and public-spirited artists in 1970s New York. Reynolds has researched the subject with guerrilla gardeners from thirty different countries, and compiles their advice on what to grow where, how to cope with adverse environmental conditions, how to seed-bomb …

While the green lifestyle has been fashionable for German urban dwellers for some time now, many are taking the next step and getting themselves green thumbs. Gardening is more popular than ever in cities, allowing stressed-out city folk to create their own little verdant oases. Some are even growing their own fruits and veggies.

I’ve talked about not having a perfect garden before, but I still get questions and comments about failing when gardening. People will say that they are scared of failing or making a mistake. They want things to be perfect. My sage advice to them is, “You will fail when you garden.” For more information, please visit http:///www.UrbanOrganicGardener.com.