Guerilla gardeners give back

Temporarily bound to crutches after a tragic kickball accident, Patrick Sullivan hobbles through the park at around 9 a.m. hoping that this morning he can finish watering his illegal gardens before it gets too hot.

"Spring and fall are planting seasons, but the gardens require constant attention," Sullivan said as he toiled over some ­tomatillos at West Austin Park. "We water every two days and are relentlessly weeding. In all, it takes about an hour a day."

Six years ago, Sullivan and a friend decided to address the unavailability of community gardens in Austin with their own form of peaceful yet illegal action: guerilla gardening. What began with transforming a grassy area into a forest has grown into eight community gardens around the city and a militia that is about 30 members strong.

"It's not about me wanting to plant. Otherwise, I would have put it in my backyard and not a public park," Sullivan said. "It's about community education, having a great time and producing something, not just consuming."

Community gardens provide members access to fresh fruits and vegetables as well as a place to socialize and connect to the environment. The gardens are in stark demand around the city, with waitlists dozens of names long in some areas. Sullivan estimates these will take years to ­­­­accommodate. The guerilla gardeners hope that by creating gardens that anyone can care for and harvest from, people will come to understand the importance and ease of growing their own food.

"Think about all the gas it takes to get that lettuce to the store and back home when it's growing for free just a bike ride away," Sullivan said. "We have no tractors, no tillers, no gasoline, no pesticides, and nobody is being mistreated."

The gardeners operate without permission and have met opposition from the city of Austin in the past for planting fruiting trees on the perimeter of a Clarksville Park. The trees were uprooted within 24 hours. Sullivan said he takes full legal responsibility and maintains that the success of the gardens is not due to his activism or the lack of city action.

"The main reason it has stuck around is because the community supports it," Sullivan said. "There are so many contributors, I don't even know all of them."

The underground group operates completely by word-of-mouth. On gardening days, Sullivan invites anyone he thinks might want to help to his house for barbecue before the group walks with shovels in their hands and seeds in their pockets to create a new garden.

"I'm not saying it's a good idea to start planting corn in the baseball field, but there is so much unused space and there is no reason we shouldn't plant a garden there," Sullivan said. "We may not have permission, but we're not taking away, not sacrificing, not compromising. We're only adding."

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