I first broke ground in Vancouver BC, on June 7th, 2009. For me this was a very symbolic act. This was the day I finally got the stamp in my passport that said I was an official resident of Canada. Living in an apartment I didn’t have a piece of ground of my own, but I had been scouting out the nearby possibilities for about a year and a half while waiting for my residency to come through.

One of the reasons I like guerrilla gardening, as compared to community gardening (which I also like), is that I don’t ask for permission from anyone, instead I listen for the earth’s call. Granted, this means my garden might get mowed, but honestly– and this is true everywhere but is true under current International Law for Vancouver, BC in particular (since the Indigenous tribes never ceded their land to the Canadian government)–I shouldn’t have to write up a report and proposal to plant a garden. I shouldn’t have to beg for permission to simply care for neglected land. If anything I should find a First Nations person and ask them if they would mind if I tended to and cared for a neglected piece of land, (they would probably wonder why I am wasting time asking, instead of just getting on with it).

Looking at the situation from this perspective–I feel more like I am following Masoanobu Fukuoka’s philosophy of “natural farming” as can be found in his ‘little Green book’ The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming (which I highly recommend by the way).

To the extent that people separate themselves from nature, they spin out further and further from the center. At the same time, a centripetal effect asserts itself and the desire to return to nature arises. But if people merely become caught up in reacting, moving the the left or the right, depending on the conditions, the result is only more activity. The non-moving point of origin, which lies outside the realm of relativity, is passed over, unnoticed. I believe that even “returning to nature” and anti-pollution activities no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the over-development of the present age. -p21

Quote taken from The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming by Masanobu Fukuoka