REMINDER: We're A-Meetin', Yo!

Hear ye, hear ye! The D.C. Guerilla Gardeners will be getting together tomorrow evening, 6:30pm, at Tynan Coffee in Columbia Heights to plan our 2011 season o' guerilla-y fun!

Come prepared to drink some coffee - Let's make sure we give Tynan lots of props for letting us use their space! - and hash out ideas to transform D.C.'s concrete jungle into a green, uh... actual jungle.

I'll also be soliciting (read: begging) y'all for some help with some of the administrative and leadership roles within the DCGG. If there's a project you'd like to oversee, by all means, oversee! If you're a guerilla with an interest in writing, we have an entire blog for you to write for! And if you're a Facebook whiz, please take over our Facebook page! Because I don't understand Facebook! At all! For reals! There's lots of fun for everyone, and I love to share the love.

The first-ever DCGG Planning Meeting is sure to be memorable, so be there!

Event: DCGG Planning Meeting

Good morning, guerillas! Spring is in the air and I am READY TO PLAY IN THE DIRT!

The DCGG will hold its first-ever MEETING OF THE MINDS on Tuesday, March 8th at Tynan Coffee & Tea in Columbia Heights. Over wonderful, wonderful caffeine, we will brainstorm ways to overtake D.C. with our guerilla-y ways, and then? AND THEN! We will schedule our events for the season! Look at us, being all organized and such... We're gardeners, guerillas, AND organizational gurus! Woo!

2010 was an amazing year for the DCGG. The press we got was overwhelming, and though being so out-in-the-open isn't guerilla-y per se, it brought us lots and lots of recruits. With a bigger team than ever, we can sneak attack D.C. in even bigger ways!

I'd love to hear your ideas, my friends. Let's pow wow on the 8th and make 2011 the Year of The Guerilla Gardener!

What: DCGG Meeting of the Minds
Where: Tynan Coffee & Tea - 1400 Irving Street NW, Washington D.C. - Right at the Columbia Heights Metro stop on the Green/Yellow line.
When: Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 6:30PM
Why: Because we want to turn all of D.C.'s forgotten spots into green ones!
RSVP: If you plan to come, please let me know so that we can commandeer enough tables.

Happy almost-Spring, my awesome guerillas! I look forward to seeing your green thumbs on the 8th!

Swap 'Dem Seeds!

Hey kids, you know what time it is? IT'S SEED SWAPPIN' TIME!

Yes indeedie, Spring is right around the corner so all of us gardenin' folk are antsy with cabin fever. The dirt! It calls to us! Which means that we're planning our beds and preparing our tools and, yes, swapping our seeds!

Join me and lots of other super cool people at the Washington Gardener Magazine's 6th Annual Seed Exchange. There'll be seed swapping, door prizes, planting tips, expert speakers, and goodie bags! Woo! Fanfare!

Event Overview

Washington Gardener magazine, the publication for DC-area gardening enthusiasts, is hosting its Sixth Annual Seed Exchange at Brookside Gardens and Green Spring Gardens. These seed swaps are in-person and face-to-face. You bring your extra seeds and swap them with other gardeners. Everyone will leave with a bag full of seeds, new garden friends, and expert planting advice.

Where

This year, there are DUAL Seed Exchanges one week apart and on opposite sides of the Beltway. One Exchange will be in the Visitor's Center Auditorium of the Brookside Gardens, 18oo Glenallen Avenue, Wheaton, MD. The other will be at Green Spring Gardens, 4603 Green Spring Road in Alexandria, VA.

When

> Saturday, January 29, 2011 (Brookside Gardens, Wheaton, MD)
> Saturday, February 5, 2011 (Green Spring Gardens, Alexandria, VA)

I'll be at the February 5th event, swappin' seeds and telling everyone who will listen about the D.C. Guerilla Gardeners and our fabulousness!

Check out http://www.washingtongardener.com/ for more information and to register.

Bombs Away! The DCGG In Washington Gardener Magazine

When the amazing Kathy Jentz contacted me about writing an article on seed bombs for Washington Gardener Magazine, I jumped for joy. A chance to write! About seed bombs! Is there anything better than that? Methinks not.

I'm super behind the 8-ball with posting this, but it's not too late for you fine folks to check the magazine out. Peruse the magazine rack at your local Borders, contact Kathy for a copy, or - better yet - A SUBSCRIPTION! Nothing says, "Gardening, I love you, man!" like a subscription to Washington Gardener Magazine.

Check out the issue's information and how to subscribe to the magazine here. Happy reading!

Fame, Fortune, and Felonious Acts

Guerilla gardening is all about The Sneak, but we at the DCGG seem to be attracting a lot of attention. Do we mind? Oh hells no! We love the love, people, and hope that our not-so-clandestine doin's inspire others to take matters into their own hands and beautify their neighborhoods.

Our mission at 932 Florida Avenue was our first night event, as well as our first time working under the watchful eye of the vivacious Mana Rabiee, journalist for Voice of America. Mana, a District resident herself, was doing a piece on guerilla gardening and so joined us for our nighttime planting. I have a feeling that we'll be seeing Mana again... she has the spirit of a guerilla gardener.

Watch (or read!) us in action, my gardening friends. And when you do, I give you permission to fall in love with my boyfriend's parrot, Gandalf. She's a super star! Also, try not to notice that around 2:30 in the video you can totally see down my shirt. (And that it ain't pretty, yo.)

Most favorite quote ever: KEN - "Oh, this is totally beauty. It's also vandalism."

Ken, I not-so-secretly love you.

Many thanks to the valiant guerillas who transformed 932 Florida Avenue into something awesome: Abbie, Doug, and Ken.

Design. Cultivate. Celebrate. THIS WEEKEND!

Join Deepening Roots THIS WEEKEND for a two-day workshop about healthy food and sustainability.

The Deepening Roots (www.deepeningroots.org) weekend workshop is a dynamic, hands-on educational program that will get you thinking in new ways about how healthy nutrition, agriculture and meditation work together for sustainable development. People of all backgrounds and experience levels have enjoyed this workshop, and walked away with enthusiasm, new knowledge and the tools to apply it.

High-Energy Foods
Learn to prepare tasty foods that will boost your energy, strengthen your immune system and give you complete nutrition. With handy food preparation tips, simple recipes and informative discussions, we will demystify how to eat well and bust the hype of fad diets.

Grow your own food... even if you don’t have a garden!
There is no better way to access fresh foods than to grow them yourself. From kitchen gardens to herb spirals, from balcony-grown tomatoes to backyard forest gardens, we will teach all the basic principles you need to start growing fresh, high energy foods. No green thumb required!

Building Healthy Communities
Imagine a community where people are happy, connected and supportive of one another. A community with clean air, abundant food and green space to explore. A community that is exciting, dynamic and peaceful. By exploring innovative breathing and meditation practices, you will learn how we can all be the building blocks for such vibrant communities.

Date and Time: October 30th - October 31st, 12PM to 5PM each day
Location: 2401 15th Street NW
To Register: Click here.

Sneaky Success! 932 Florida Avenue

Afternoon, mon amies!

For those who have been all a-twitter waiting for news on our latest sneak attack, the wait is over! I am here to tell you that the October 2nd dig at 932 Florida Avenue NW was, in a word, FAN-FREAKIN'-TASTIC.

Before

This was the most intensive project to date (not counting the one in Summer at which I almost died). Four guerillas hauled buns to the abandoned church/car wash - which I have lovingly dubbed the "House of Wash-ip"... get it?! Car wash + House of worship = WASH-IP! Oh, the humor people, it hurts - and brought with them a friggin' abundance of plants. Grasses, irises, a cana lily, a butterfly bush, lamb's ear, mums, pansies, asters, mint, ornamental cabbage, ornamental kale, and a cactus.

Oh heck yeah, we planted a cactus. Woot!

Supplies

Anticipating another location with rock-hard dirt, I purchased the nifty Ground Hog, better known as the Garden Weasel (as seen on TV). It was pointy and shiny and wonderful... but unnecessary. Turns out? That was some fabulous dirt. No need for roll-y points of sharpness to break it up. I'll just have to save my Weasel for the next project.

We worked for three hours, planting and planting and planting as nearby Howard University students passed on their way to U Street. We even got a "thanks for doing that!" from one of the passers-by. (The week before a local resident stopped to help me and Guerilla #2 remove bindweed from the fence at the location. He was amped about the project.) In the dark we worked, true guerilla style. No permission, no light, all awesome.

Agent K created a nifty rock garden using broken concrete and rocks from the site:

Newbie guerilla, who we will call Awesome until she chooses her own alias, brought three buckets of irises from her own garden, and jumped into the dig with zeal. (Awesome is wicked cool and will be going to Burma or Bangalore or some other exotic place that begins with a B - or is it a C? - to work on a documentary. I want her to bring me back a zebra. And a meerkat.)

Gandalf, our Secondary Mascot (second only to The Gorilla), kept careful watch on our progress, occasionally beeping like a car alarm and hollering at pedestrians. She also ate our pansies.

And the icing on the cake? Voice of America came to tape the dig for a piece they are doing on guerilla gardening.

Agent K planting and telling the producer lots of super cool stuff about guerilla gardening.

All the hard work paid off. Check out the site after the DCGG got its hands on it!

More than a week later, the site's still looking good, though the grasses are a tad brownish and several of our plants have been stolen. Specifically some of the irises, the ornamental kale, most of the pansies in the concrete wall, and the mum. But I hold out hope that the plant-stealing wasn't an act of vandalism, and instead that of fellow plant lover down on their luck and in desperate need of some ornamental cabbage. I would love to get in a huff about people stealing plants (I'm all about a good huff), but I don't feel that I have the grounds for such a huff considering we guerillas engage in felonious acts all of the time. (Stealing is not one of said felonious acts. Trespassing is.)

And there you have it, mah peeps! Another successful sneak attack on our beloved D.C. Wish you'd been there? Then get your posterior on the DCGG mailing list so that you can get notice of upcoming events! Do it!

The Fall may be here and Winter may be a-comin', but that doesn't mean the DCGG goes into hibernation. So stay tuned for more guerilla-y fun!

Muchas gracias to Guerilla #2 for taking pictures the night of the event, and then running out to get After pics when it was rainy and icky outside!