Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area

Film Clip: Perhaps the original guerrilla (chimpanzee) gardener in this WW2 Victory Garden clip.

Article By Joe Robinson,
LA Times May 29, 2008

“The activists see themselves as 21st century Johnny Appleseeds, harvesting a natural bounty of daffodils or organic green beans from forgotten dirt. It’s a step into more self-reliant living in the city,” says Erik Knutzen, coauthor with his wife, Kelly Coyne, of “The Urban Homestead” to be released in June. The Echo Park couple have chronicled “pirate farming” on their blog, Homegrown Evolution. Guerrilla gardening, Knutzen says, is a reaction to the wasteful use of land, such as vacant lots and sidewalk parkways. He’s turned the parkway in front of his home into a vegetable garden.

“Guerrilla gardens can serve the same purpose as the Victory gardens,” says Taylor Arneson, editor of the Los Angeles Permaculture Guild newsletter and a proponent of sustainable food production. He and a friend raised a farmers market worth of crops — corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, watermelon, cucumber and more — in a guerrilla dig at a large planter bed in front of an office building on Bundy Drive in West Los Angeles. Farming in broad daylight, they got support from office workers and kids excited to see real cornstalks.

Link to the LA Times Article here.

Read: Guerrilla Gardening – A Manualfesto
By Vancouver writer David Tracey