A White House Garden It's Not, But...

The Slow Cook has a post on a guy in Portland, Oregon, who got tired of waiting for a plot at a community garden, so he used Google maps to locate nearby empty city lots. Then he contacted owners about gardening on the vacant properties. One woman replied:

The landowner had recently received a nuisance complaint from the city about the buildup of refuse on the lot. She was elated that I would clean up the lot and turn it into a garden. In exchange for the use of the land, I am providing her with approximately one CSA share of produce for 16 weeks. We drew up an agreement, and she promises to give me as much advance notice as possible should she decide to sell. She also offered me a lot four times the size of this one, about 20 blocks away, which I hope to use next year.

The risk, of course, is that in a few years he'll lose the land and all the work he put into it, but then I imagine there will be other plots for the taking.

Let every empty city lot be a garden! Imagine.

More on the garden here.

Comments

[Nat West]

Hi Sam - I am that guy. You bring up a good point about being beholden to the lot owner. I'm always keeping an eye on that. For instance, no perennials, no berries, no trees, no bushes, free or cheap soil amendments, etc. We have an understanding that she'll only sell between October and March of any year, and definitely not for a couple years. But like you said, there are other plots farther afield that I am already planning to use in the coming seasons, so losing any one plot won't be the end of my market gardening.

[Rodney North]

Nat, I love what you're doing.
On a smaller scale I've been doing something similar and frankly less sanctioned, namely I've adopted a narrow, neglected, bare stretch of gravel and weeds along seldom-used train track in our neighborhood, where a pedistrian path crosses it.
At first I would just pick up the litter but later I got more ambitious. Along some parts of the track further down there were oaks, maples, locust trees, and more, creating a welcome green swath through what is a really built up area.
So for a few years I've been taking acorns and maple seedlings etc from the green stretch down to "my" rocky garden. I've also been building up the soil, adding a few flowers.
It's been fun. Locals seem to appreciate it and I'm already seeing results.
And while my plans were about plants a real indicator of success were the animals. The first was the return of ants. (That's how bad this plot had been.) Then worms. Then mice. Then rabbits. Then hawks hunting the mice & rabbits.
And maybe the most encouraging sign is I'm now finding that "my" trees are now 10 feet tall and reproducing on their own.

[adina]

yay nat! this is AMAZING.

[Nat West]

Great work Rodney - there are awesome examples of this "guerilla gardening" happening in many places. I had considered doing the same for my veggies, but I don't have anything like that that's close enough.