Guerrilla Gardening in Adana

I’ve lived in Adana for almost 7 years now.  I am happy to say that Adana has become much more attractive, tidy and clean in the time I’ve lived here.  That said there’s plenty of room for beautification through nature.  One area that’s particularly annoying is that empty lots in neighborhoods like ours become total eyesores and basically dumping grounds for old construction materials (bricks, concrete blocks, huge chunks of blacktop, etc.  One such place is in view from our balcony; and as I’ve looked out there this spring, I thought to myself “quit complaining about not having a garden, go over there and plant some stuff!”

Well, I’ve been reading and hearing bits and pieces of information recently around the web about  “Guerrilla Gardening.”   The idea of Guerrilla Gardening is to get out in neglected urban spaces and plant vegetable and flower seeds there, both for beautification and to provide food  with plots of land that are sitting empty.  It’s a very compelling idea, especially for me living in an apartment where there’s no place to set up a proper garden (except for my balcony).

I decided to give Guerrilla Gardening a try.  Since we’ll be out of town for the summer, my idea is to set up a raised bed where I can begin some soil preparations over the summer and plant some greens next fall when the weather cools down.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.

One of the big “eyesores” of the empty lot was a big pile of concrete pavers.  What could be more perfect for raised garden bed?!

I built a garden bed that’s probably 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters long.  I loosened up the soil.

I then heaped a bunch of dead weeds in there that I hope will decompose over the summer.

I then covered it all with dirt.

The next step will be to cover that dirt with cardboard or newspaper to prevent weeds from growing there over the summer while that layer of dead weeds starts composting.  I’m planning to plant beans, peas and lentils around the border of the bed to grow over the summer because I’ve heard that legumes fill the soil with nitrogen (natural fertilizer.)

While I was out there, I started a compost pile and We planted some onions, garden cress and spinach around the area  in hopes that they’ll grow up, bolt and spread seeds around during the summer. I have no idea if it’ll work or if the whole thing will be demolished when we come back in the fall, but I think it’s worth a try.  I don’t know if anyone else is doing Guerrilla Gardening in Turkey, but this could be the start of something fun.