by Thera McAvoy
In urban spaces with few green spaces, that may also act as food deserts, some people chose to begin gardening on public or privately owned land without permission. Guerilla gardening is the act of planting gardens in urban spaces, often without any kind of legal right to use the land.[1] Forms of guerilla gardening vary widely, and can range from throwing seed bombs (Made of dirt, clay, compost, water, and seeds intended to germinate where they fall.), moss graffiti painted on walls, or planting full gardens and maintaining them.[2]
Guerilla gardeners are motivated by a lot of different forces. Some are trying to fight deserts in areas the don’t have ready access to supermarkets or produce stores through practices such as grafting fruit bearing tree limbs onto non fruit bearing city trees.[3] Seed bombing can function as a way to green and beautify neglected public spaces and vacant lots.[4] Others want to show how land should be used and managed, and how their local governments are failing to make use of empty land.[5] This runs the risk that much of the land used for gardening is often being used illegally–either through trespassing against private owners or through using public land against local ordinances.