Vancouver city officials are allowing residents to grow crops along roadsides

Guerrilla gardens going mainstream

Vancouver city officials will let residents grow crops along roadsides, as skyrocketing food prices drive a huge increase in urban agriculture.

Demand for plots in city-serviced community gardens is so heavy that all 70 have waiting lists. Meanwhile, “guerrilla gardeners” are sowing seeds on vacant lots and right-of-ways, property owners are making ground available to neighbours and small-scale farmers, and apartment dwellers are growing herbs and vegetables in gardens that fit on a window sill.

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With waits as long as three years for the city-serviced community garden plots, many people are turning to unauthorized “guerrilla gardens,” one of the most impressive of which was started by a wheelchair-bound man along unused railroad tracks by Granville Island. “He was surprised that nobody stole his tomatoes,” Tracey says. “Now all along the tracks you can see, the neighbours have taken it on.”

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http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Guerrilla+gardens+going+mainstream/4819883/story.html

City officials have largely taken a hands-off approach to guerrilla gardening and unsanctioned usufruct because they haven’t received complaints, Zak says. And while the city tells those who garden on the boulevard strips between the sidewalk and the street to grow only ornamental flowers and plants, officials plan to open up those roadside spaces for cultivation of food, Zak says.

(Other than human pests, that is.)

Jeez, Officer, that's just ditch weed. I didn't plant it.

Prisoners of war don't grow edible items, only flowers.

So they can't be said to be helping the enemy side, but still adding to the better side of thoughts.

That metaphor is all over the place, in ideas of many flowers to share with people.


Going to California by Led Zeppelin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpVLlnQ08OA


Although the flowers might just be the actual powers!!!!!!!!!!

should make sure we do not leave beauty behind. Flowers are food for the soul.

and always let a few plants go to seed for the bees, as well as the seed. Some of the veggie buds and blossoms are quite delish, my kale is in flower now and I actually enjoy the tips more than the kale itself. Its been such a lousy spring that nothing else is up yet so at least there is something fresh to munch on. Edible chrysanthamum or shungiku come up very early and then flower. Leeks are another to let a couple stay in over winter and let go to seed, the flowers are absolutely lovely.

reseach on that.

apartments plant on my land. I've a small garden this year for myself, so I let others use the rest of the area...I sure hope they keep up their gardens and don't expect me to weed and water for them...that's why I didn't go bigger, I just can't handle the heat anymore.

In many rural areas, the only place to put a garden is the roadside where construction provided relatively dry rock-free soil.

and they're heavily fenced to keep the moose out