Part 3: Growing Fresh Organic Food
Planing an assortment of vegetables and food tree in an organic manner, rather than a monoculture, creates a “food forest” that tries to emulate nature. This helps to prevent the soil being drained. By planting plants that complement each other, pesticides and chemicals can be avoided.
Citizen Vegetable Gardening
Frank and Tina decided to start small and advise others to do the same. But guerrilla gardening could certainly be done on a larger scale in Durban and by the agricultural cooperatives in rural areas, with people taking ownership of the spaces in their communities to beautify them and perhaps grow food for the of a particulr area. Tina and Frank have shown that this can be done and that with a bit of hard work, food can be grown in a sustainable way that helps tackle poverty and feed the communities.
Elsewhere in the world similar projects have been on the go for quite some time. The people in Cuba have put permaculture techniques to good use, transforming much unused spaces into food forestst. In 1989 when the Soviet Union fell, Cuba stopped receiving food from outside of the country. People started to grow food in open, unused spaces to address the food shortages. Over time government set guidelines and all the gardens became organic and made use of permaculture techniques. Today, up to 70% of Cuba’s frsh produce is grown that way and people are living healthier lives as they are working in their gardens and eating the organic food they produce.
In Britain most guerrilla gardening involves beautifyng areas with flowers and other plants to increase the aesthetic appeal of cities. There, guerrilla gardening is classified as “criminal damage”, which is why mostly takes place at night. For people without their own gardens, guerrilla gardening gives them a way to connect with nature and to produce something of beauty and of value to passersby in the city
