Forks and Flowers

'Lets fight the filth with forks and flowers.' 


-       Richard Reynolds, On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries. (London: Bloomsbury, 2008)

“Often... visible outdoor areas are homogenous, cookie-cutter spaces, where neatly-trimmed grass or a few well-placed flower pots are admired and appreciated by the neighbors. But for some revolutionary gardeners, a feast for the eyes is not enough. They want something edible in return for the hard work, the water and the expense of tending a landscape. These food revolutionaries are maximizing their cultivation area by converting their landscapes, patios, and nearby vacant lots into productive edible gardens. In the quest for more space to grow food, even conventional front lawns are being transformed into maverick, and highly visible, vegetable plots.... the rise of modern vegetable gardeners who are cutting against the grain of current landscape fashion to grow food out in the open once again”

                   -Kari Spencer, quotation from Squidoo article Ground-Breaking: Making the       Switch from Lawns to Food.

My place is the place of guerrilla gardeners, I have found. On walking home from my bus stop one stay, I suddenly stopped at a yard, realizing what I was looking at. I have passed this front yard many, many times over the course of the summer. But now, in the month of growing things coming to harvest, I am cognizant of looking, not at trimmed bushes, boring lawn, and flowers that behave themselves in neat rows, but VEGETABLES!

It is not lawful for people to grow vegetables in their front yard. If this garden-grower’s neighbors were to complain, they could be made to dig their vegetables up. But I can see that the people here have taken great pains to keep the garden tidy. They have added certain aspects that make the produce attractive, not just utile. The sunflowers, for example, or the boundary hedges of lavender. Clever! The sole tomato plant occupies the middle of the lawn, its heavy red globes almost ornamental amongst the furred leaves. It could be mistaken for a hydrangea, or some such, if one doesn’t look too closely. Perhaps that is the idea. Clever!

Fly in the face of suburban mores, I say! Thumb your nose at being just another of those ticky-tacky boxes. Do you remember that old folk song – “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds, back in the 1960’s?

Little boxes on the hillside,


Little boxes made of ticky tacky,

Little boxes on the hillside,


Little boxes all the same.


There's a green one and a pink one 


And a blue one and a yellow one,


And they're all made out of ticky tacky


And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses


All went to the university,


Where they were put in boxes


And they came out all the same,


And there's doctors and lawyers,


And business executives,


And they're all made out of ticky tacky


And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course


And drink their martinis dry,


And they all have pretty children


And the children go to school,


And the children go to summer camp


And then to the university,


Where they are put in boxes


And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business


And marry and raise a family


In boxes made of ticky tacky 


And they all look just the same.


There's a green one and a pink one


And a blue one and a yellow one,


And they're all made out of ticky tacky


And they all look just the same.

Clever!