My little experiences with the truth: The gardens is in dangers of being destroy!

Dear readers,

Today is a sad day. Two of the four gardens might been destroyed at this very moment.

Today, I woke up early, feeling a bit tired but well. I headed over to two of the local coffee shops to pick up some coffee ground for today's planting. I was planning to plant some bush beans, carrots, cucumbers and squash. The sky was still gray while I was on my way to the gardens.

When I got to the garden that situated within a neighborhood that full of abandoned houses, I know something was not right. I saw 3 push lawn mowers and 1 riding law mowers at work around my garden. I know that they were sent by the organization that own the property.

Here is two of the workers

Even though I knew what is going on, I still picked up my fork and seed and proceed to do some planting. Within 5 minutes, one of the workers came to me, kindly asked me what was I doing then. I explained to him that I was gardening in a lot that is being wasted by its idleness. His name is Victor and he understood my project and supported it. Since he was not the boss so he suggested to help me speak to his boss about my project and to see if it is possible that they can leave my garden alone. It was not successful and his boss said to him that I am only wasting my time to try to grow a garden there.

I don't blame the workers since they were sub contracted for this project, it is not their choice to do this. Victor was so curious about what I was doing. He asked me how long it take for different plants to grow to maturity and I gladly answered him with all his questions. I was grateful for his curiosity. I wonder what would he do if the pressure of life wasn't on him; would his curiosity would had lead him to become a farmer or a gardener.

Since the lots that contain my biggest garden also within the boundaries of their landscape services, I know that it is possible that they will also destroy it, so I set out some big wood log around my garden, not to stop them as they are quite easy to move out of the way, but just to notify them that there is a garden and they can choose what do they want to do.

I place the rocks and the wood sticks to show the boundaries of the garden

placing tree log to show boundaries.

Instead of my initial desire to stay and document the destruction with my camera, I decided to use the time to explore more empty lots to garden on. I wonder at this very moment did the gardens survive. I hope they do. I am not too sad, since it was expected that something like this would happen. It is all a part of the experiment.

As I was wandering the city, a surprising thought hit me hard: why am I gardening when the waste of the city can feed me well. I thought to myself that I can eat well just by dumpster diving, reducing the waste and save water from gardening. I don't know. To be honest, that was a troubling thought since I do enjoy gardening and it was a great part of the whole program. But suddenly such prominent feature of the experiment seem unnecessary. I am not saying gardening is bad, but in this all too wasteful society, all too imperfect society, that I don't need to garden to have enough food to survive, to survive sustainably. So I am confuse about the question if I should continue to consume more water that I don't need to survive or should I just stop gardening and just dumpster diving. I don't know... I am still trying to figure it out. But to turn wasted land to a land that produces does interest me. but maybe I can turn a wasted land to a land that produces without consuming clean water. May be I can turn the land to a playground or something else. I need to give it more thought. I will let you all know when I thought it though, but if you have any though or advise, please comment to this blog entry. thanks.

Some what-can-be-their-last-pictures from those 2 gardens: