Guerrilla gardening in your own backyard

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by ppp, Feb 26, 2008.

  1. ppp

    ppp Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2007
    Messages:
    550
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Ever now and then I randomly spread out seed as they come available. this has included

    - paw-paw - I currently have about 5 seedlings, two of which I have transplanted to a better spot, 3 will follow.. I just broadcast the seed by throwing it around straight out of the fruit.
    - rock mellon - I have a good looking plant growing in amongst my pigeon pea
    - pumpkin - I always seem to have pumpkin growing somewhere, with great success, this is part from the compost and partly from random seed spreading activities.
    - honey dew melon in the lawn (i didn't plant those, they must have jumped out when I took the compost to the bin)
    -beans - when it was raining I walked around and pushed some bean seeds in, on the nature strip, and in other "non-vegie garden" areas - they have come up but are yet to get big.

    It seems to havea couple of benefits:
    -Free plants (when seeds come out of fruit etc)
    -Plants grow where they are comfortable and are more likely to be productive
    - Where my better half might not be happy with me planting 5 paw-paws, it is OK for me to transplant ones that have "come up".

    I guess you could call this Guerrilla Gardening, but it's in my own backyard!

    Anyone else doing successful Guerrilla-Home-Gardening?
     
  2. marley339

    marley339 Junior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 20, 2008
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Introducing an element of randomness into one's home garden does have some advantages.

    I throw arugula(also called rocket I think) seeds, fennel seeds, amaranth seeds, chamomile, and loquat seeds around my mom's suburban garden in Southern California.

    This "low-investment" kind of planting makes sense when you have lots of seeds of something and can sacrifice the ones that come up in places that just won't work, or if yuo change plans for an area.
     
  3. hardworkinghippy

    hardworkinghippy Junior Member

    Joined:
    May 2, 2007
    Messages:
    168
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    16
    When we're sitting on the back terrace eating cherries, plums, peaches or whatever, we just throw the stones into the compost heap at the back of the gloriette which is covered by a Lady Banks rose.

    The stones fall through the foliage and I've already had peaches from one tree which I left to grow where it was and I've transplanted seven which are due to fruit this year. :)
     
  4. Fathom

    Fathom Junior Member

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2007
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I like walking around my garden eating Watermelon and I spit the seeds out all over the place. I find that some plants thrive and others not so.
    If you have many plants however you will get a decent crop without doing any work.
    I also throw Pumpkin seed, Gooseberry, Squash and many others around randomnly and let nature decide which plants survive.
    Of course the seed was produced from the last crop grown on my block.
     
  5. marley339

    marley339 Junior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 20, 2008
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    That sounds great hardworkinghippy and Fathom.
    There are actually some peaches starting to sprout up from seeds in my mom's garden also. Should I keep them? Are peaches like apples and avocados in the randomness of their fruiting characteristics if grown from seed? Is it worth it to promote these and wait to see how they turn out in my mom's small garden? Or should I just get known cultivars, grafted onto a rootstock?

    I know that apples grown from seed usually revert to hard-to-eat crab apples if grown from seed, and avocados from seed might not fruit for really long time and they might never produce reliable crops.

    Are these just exagerations...that keep people going back to nurseries and professionals to get grafted trees? This reasoning has kept me from growing out my own avocados, peaches, plums etc from seed...even though I am a big advocate of open-pollination and the exciting results that could be awaiting with each genetic recombination.

    I know it is not a yes or know question, it's a balance between the pros and cons of predicitability, uniformity, yield, space, time, investment energy etc. What do you all think?
     
  6. JoanVL

    JoanVL Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2007
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I just cannot resist experimenting, so I have a few avocadoes growing in spare places, from seed. I'm lucky in that my son has a house two doors down, and the garden is mine - he's no interest in it - so spare stuff goes there.

    I've got mangoes too - I understand they do grow true to seed. So do Paw paw, but remember, you need one male paw paw to about 8 females. The male has his flowers on long stalks, the female flowers are close to the trunk, so it's easy to tell.

    I had a self-seeded melon growing, but something nasty ate it from the inside.

    I love it when an unexpected something pops up from a dropped seed. Last year I went to the Brisbane gardening expo, where I was given an 'Abiu' seed, and the tree I'm growing from it is about 4 inches so far. I saw some dragon fruit at the greengrocers and am tempted to buy one and try the seed....

    My passionfruit and paw paw are all grown from seed I took from fruit I bought originally, but now I just continue propagating from my own grown stuff.

    My cherry tomatoes have an interesting provenance: a former colleague picked some wild cherry tomatoes at The Valley (now Chinatown) 40 years ago. She grew them in her Mum's garden, they continued, and when she inheritied the house she gave a few to me to grow.

    If I could have my time all over again, I'd study plant biology: my experiments are random - but if I knew what I was doing it would be great.
     
  7. Duckpond

    Duckpond Junior Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2007
    Messages:
    38
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    i have free range ducks and they eat most things, so i broadcast seeds over the garden to see what they will not eat. i have parsley, oregano, amd thyme doing well. all the others get eaten, but it's ok because they were free, and their food for ducks

    I also am into aquaponics and throw seeds ata space in the aquaponic grow beds and let them grow. it evens out my plant levels
     
  8. hedwig

    hedwig Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 28, 2005
    Messages:
    680
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    as it is in your own backyard it is not guerilla gardening. If you do the same on council land it is. I always wanted to do a bit of planting outside our garden, until now we only plant our footpath.
     
  9. ppp

    ppp Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2007
    Messages:
    550
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    0
    yeah, I know.

    I have tried some very basic guerrilla gardening but haven't yet had much success, and just thought that some of the things we do in our own backyards are similar.
     
  10. marley339

    marley339 Junior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 20, 2008
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I collected a whole lot of nectarine and peach seeds the other day at a farm and I have been walking around my mom's suburnban neighborhood and poking the seeds into soft spots in the ground around the paths!

    There are already some 30cm tall loquat seeds growing out of the Ivy in the common areas between houses in places where I threw seeds a while ago.

    I have had some not too edible results from cucurbit volunteers, especially melons.

    For the dragon fruit you should try to propagate from cuttings, it is very easy that way.
     
  11. marley339

    marley339 Junior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 20, 2008
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Actually mangos are slightly more complicated.....I had a vague memory of reading about monoembrionic and polyembrionic mango seeds so I looked it up online and found this:

    [

    This is from "Fruits of warm climates" by Julia F. Morton.
    Nevertheless, pretty much all trees are fruitful and good, they just are not exactly the same, so it is all good unless you are trying to have a giant commerical plantation or you only have a small area to grow trees and you really want to be sure of their characteristics.

    Plant sex can be pretty complicated :razz:
     

Share This Page

-->