One of our favorite early articles, back when we started in 2016, was about Food Not Bombs practicing guerrilla gardening planting tomatoes for the unsheltered living and commuting along the Truckee River path.
We don’t know if more of this is happening up to today but we wanted to reiterate how holistically revolutionary this could be if done by more groups in more corners of northern Nevada.
Guerrilla gardening means planting food and native species where they aren’t technically allowed such as vacant lots, strips of land along roads, pathways, around bridges and even hidden portions of city parks.
It has multiple benefits of beautifying areas, providing healthy vegetables and fruits for free picking, supports pollinators and creates greener, less hot spaces.
You can also ask for permission or start up a program to convert unused land into a community garden project as Soulful Seeds has done.
Proponents of guerrilla gardening have developed “seed bombs” which are balls of compost, clay and seeds, all held together while nutrients are provided. In the high desert though the lack of rain could make these a little harder to be effective. But they could be thrown onto existing lawns, which are getting watered.
Taking that idea further, for renters and homeowners, there’s an expanding movement of food not lawns, whereby lawns are being replaced for growing food and native plants.
The website of that name says it’s creating an international movement whereby “friendly neighbors share seeds, land, tools, labor and resources.”
It was conceived by the Food Not Bombs in Eugene, Oregon at the end of the last century, “using friendship-based community organizing and principles of permaculture, gift economy, and mutual aid,” and in recent years here in Reno we’ve seen more renters and homeowners do just that.
We say, why not more of that as well?