The term "Guerrilla gardening" has its roots in the neglected margins of Manhattan.

In 1973, Liz Christy and her Guerrilla gardeners founded New York City's first community garden at the corners of Bowery and Houston streets in the village. They committed acts of green activism by planting window boxes and seed-bombing vacant lots and tree pits all over the city.

As the Huffington Post reports, Guerrilla gardening now takes place all around the globe. In the UK, a very active site, GuerrillaGardening.org offers information, ideas and support for marginal gardeners everywhere. While in most places, technically this type of gardening is usually considered illegal, it bends the law an a most beautiful way.

Seed bomb recipes and tutorials abound and around the web but the mission is always the same, creating beauty from the barren. Elbow deep and reveling, in the glories of vermiculture, seed and clay soil, these marginal, recessionary  victory gardeners are on a mission.

The really good news is that seed sales are up and that makes the Butterflies and Bees happy!

(Photo credit:mathiasbaert on flickr)

Endless parking lots are the devil—not just because they're wearisome to schlep through in the rain as you struggle fruitlessly to remember where you parked, but because they're actually one of the worst contributors to runoff and waterway pollution. That's why we're optimistic about a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) effort to test environmentally friendly, permeable pavements at its own facility.

Stormwater picks up oil and gas drippings, chemicals, sediment and debris as it washes across paved surfaces, all of which swirl inexorably into local waterways every time it rains. Soil erosion alters local ecosystems and magnifies runoff problems.

The EPA is testing three different types of permeable pavement in a 43,000-square-foot section of its Edison, N.J., parking lot. Over the next decade, the agency plans to observe how each permeable surface filters some pollutants from stormwater runoff and allows water to seeps through the pavement back into the ground.

"Runoff from parking lots and driveways is a significant source of water pollution in the United States and puts undo stress on our water infrastructure, especially in densely-populated urban areas," said EPA Acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. "By evaluating different designs and materials, this study will help us develop strategies to lessen the environmental impacts of parking lots across the country and make our communities more sustainable."

Miles and miles of paved parking lots may be the leading offender among environmental pavement offenders, but sidewalks play their part as well. Check out this sustainable innovation: interlocking sidewalk segments made from recycled tires are pervious to rainwater, reduce heat island effects within cities and resist damage from tree roots and shifting ground. Now that's walking the walk!

(Photo credit:Cholin, SXC)

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, especially when marking change that occurs slowly and gradually. This is why we mark the top of our kids' heads every year on the back of a door, charting evidence of their steady and sometimes explosive path toward adulthood. We know they're growing up—pant cuffs from last fall are suddenly at the ankle now—but we didn't see it happen on a day-to-day basis.

It's much the same with the Earth. Changes are occurring all the time, but without pictorial evidence it's hard to tell.

1. Deforestation of the Amazon. Yikes. Want graphic evidence of what we're doing to the rainforest? First, trees are cleared along roads, both legal and illegal. Small farmers move to the area, claim land along the roads, and start clearing it for crops. After a few years, the soil is depleted and erosion has occurred from heavy rains and the fact that the trees are now gone. Crop yields fail, so farmers convert the land to cattle pasture and clear more forest for crops. Eventually the whole thing fails: the farmer has cleared all his land; it's no longer producing, so he sells to big cattle farmers who consolidate all the small holdings. Have a look; you can see the changes in just 8 years, from 2000-2008.

2. The Case of the Disappearing Glaciers. Again, photos don't lie (unless we're talking about what's in fashion magazines). Photographers Brad Washburn and David Arnold created a joint exhibit, Double Exposure, illustrating the dramatic disappearance of many of the world's glaciers. Washburn, a mountaineer, started documenting some of the world's great glaciers in the 1930's. Between 2005 and 2007, Arnold revisited many of the same spots in the Alps and in Alaska, at the same time of year as the original photos, to re-photograph and document the changes. And the changes are startling.

Go ahead, climate change deniers, say all you want. We have pictures that tell the story.

(Photo credit:| spoon |, flickr)

In organically managed gardening and farming systems, weed control does not mean weed eradication. 

A weed is often defined as a plant out of place, a plant whose benefits we are not aware of. Granted, there are many weeds which are downright noxious and harmfully invasive to delicate Ecosystems, that stated, here are some ways that that beneficial weeds and native plant species work for you in the garden habitat and lawn:

1. The Dandelion (lion's tooth), a member of the Sunflower/Aster family and perhaps the most ubiquitously useful garden/lawn weed, packs a powerhouse of benefits. Besides being good in salads and herbal remedies, their deep tap roots break up soil and unlock the nutrients in it for more shallow rooted plants. They also provide nutrition for wildlife and grazing animals and sweet nectar for insects. The Dandelion is to me, is perhaps the most noble of weeds and I always enjoy seeing their smiling faces popping up in my yard. Dandelion seed heads are also extremely useful for making wishes!
2. Clover is another powerhouse weed which does not survive in a pesticide poisoned lawn. In the days before chemical weed killers, Clover seeds were regularly mixed into lawn grass seed mixes. Seeding your lawn with clover helps it to maintain and self sustain, with mulch mowing, healthy levels of nitrogen and greatly lessen the need for liming and fertilization. Drought resistant clover, keeps your lawn green when most grasses go dormant in hot summer months. Not to mention the joy you will experience upon finding a lucky four-leaf variety!
3. Beneficial weeds provide food and shelter for the natural enemies of pest insects, as well as providing organic crop pests with an alternate source of food. 
4. Weeds can serve to aerate, cover and conserve bare soil, saving it from erosion due to the effects of wind and rain.
5. Beneficial weed cover can provide, home and hearth, shelter and food for birds especially and other small wildlife.
6. Let's not forget to mention how weeds compete with cultivated flowers for beauty and fragrance. A weed like Dame's Rocket for instance, is hard to beat on either count. Joe Pye Weed would be hard to match for sheer size and drama; and the tender, diminutive, romantic Violet which has inspired so much poetry and prose would be hard for any cultivated flower's charms to match.
7. The types of weeds flourishing in our gardens, are informational markers, which tell us about overall soil condition. Harbingers of soil change and vegetation succession, they are literally the first "soil conservationists".

Some interesting reading on the subject: A Weed By Any Other Name, Weeds And What They Tell, A Global Compendium Of Weeds.

Happy Gardening, I'll see you over the Hedgerow!

(Photo credit:jude on flickr)