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Oct 1, 2010
"The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul." --Alfred Austin
The Green Guerrillas
India has developed its own version of guerrilla gardening - the greening of spaces without asking for the owner's permission. It seeks to thwart the builders' grasping reach by buying plots of land before the builders, in order to preserve green spaces that are still not swamped with concrete. Actor Atul Kulkarni teamed up with four cousins to build a forest on 24 acres of barren land in Maharashtra. Two other groups of friends have greened their land through the techniques of ahimsa farming (no plucking, pruning or harvesting). From an impoverished piece of grazed grassland with its soil eroded, the land first showed signs of stabilization with the arrival of white ants, and then rats, snakes, red ants, butterflies and spiders. Now the land produces mangoes, 23 species of bananas, apples, cherries, chikoos, celery, basil and other herbs.
BE THE CHANGE
Plant a flower or two in a plot of dirt. Watch the butterflies return.
