Guerrilla Gardening in the Graveyard

Disclaimer, in case you are all excited, I didn't plant near the graves!  :)

The rental we live in backs up to two graveyards, and we consider them our own personal park. There's almost never anyone there, other people maintain the grass and roads, flowers to look at, headstones to read, we like it. Nice quiet neighbors :D

The edges of the graveyard are overgrown in some areas, that's where I went today with seeds and a turning fork, and two chicken assistants. I planted winter squashes and swisschard. The chaos will overrun that area soon, I won't see the results till next fall, but there might be some surprise squash ready to pick then. I deliberately put all of this where animals can eat it too, where the squash can climb trees, where it's wettest, and looks like it will have the most sun. Squash varieties are: Acorn, butternut, seminole pumpkin, spaghetti squash and a big one (15 pounds or so) I don't know the name of but liked a lot. I figure if I either get some of the squash, or it feed the animals enough that they don't strip my garden, I'll call it a win. I also seeded chard down the outside of the fence line, right where the woodchuck has a path. I found his burrow back in the mess, and planted him some chard on his front porch too.

This chaotic little area now has squash and chard to run amok in it!
Mwah hah hah hah hah!!!



Not to be confused with gorilla gardening, I don't look quite this bad today, I have a cuter outfit on :D

I guess you'll never have a problem with fertiliser, especially blood & bone!

My concern would be regarding the embalming fluid and how/if it biodegrades. Since it is designed to be toxic to living things (which is why the bodies are pumped full of it in the first place) I'd be a little weary of anything down hill from the grave sites.

There seems to be quite a bit online about how environmentally friendly Formaldehyde is, and how it breaks down quickly in the soil. I really don't know how that can be when it is so good at killing microorganisms in things like animal hides (leather making) and embalming. It's certainly worth doing a deep dive into the research to see if this is a legit risk factor or the claims being made by the funeral industry are legit.

All of my planting is 50 feet uphill of any graves. I'm more careful than that :)
If it wasn't, this place requires vaults etc. It's pretty horrifying, I doubt anyone ever decomposes, I wouldn't want to be buried here (or any normal graveyard, in a coffin etc, ugh.)
I don't like or trust formaldehyde. Wouldn't have planted anyplace that was exposed to it.
The amok mess I planted in is overgrown trees, bushes, vines, etc. It's impassable by June. Pretty difficult now, I needed a guy with a machete ahead of me :)

Pearl;   ??? You NEEDED a guy in front of you, wielding a machete …  was he shirtless as well ???  and of course you followed behind to watch out for his safety???  RIGHT...
Cool idea planting there.  The residents won't complain and the wood chuck and others will help enjoy the bounty!

thomas rubino wrote:Pearl;   ??? You NEEDED a guy in front of you, wielding a machete …  was he shirtless as well ???  and of course you followed behind to watch out for his safety???  RIGHT...
Cool idea planting there.  The residents won't complain and the wood chuck and others will help enjoy the bounty!

Well, if he was shirtless, the cat brier, blackberries and gooseberrys would have definitely made him unsafe.  

And hey, I can fantasize :D Wonder if he'll move a bunch of heavy stuff for me too...

Yeah, I liked it for location. I'm hoping the wildlife will be less interested in my garden. And they need to eat too. I thought putting some on the woodchucks spoil pile in front of his hole was a nice touch ;)

What is the recommended planting depth for gorillas? Mine haven't sprouted yet.

Mike Barkley wrote:What is the recommended planting depth for gorillas? Mine haven't sprouted yet.

They are tropical, you are in zone 7, your soil isn't warm enough yet. I hope they don't rot before they warm up enough to sprout. If they do rot, rotted gorilla is good compost :)

Planting depth for gorillas depends on whether you planted them horizontally or vertically. How deep did you dig?

:D

Pearl Sutton wrote:

Mike Barkley wrote:What is the recommended planting depth for gorillas? Mine haven't sprouted yet.

They are tropical, you are in zone 7, your soil isn't warm enough yet. I hope they don't rot before they warm up enough to sprout. If they do rot, rotted gorilla is good compost :)

Planting depth for gorillas depends on whether you planted them horizontally or vertically. How deep did you dig?

:D

Personally, I think they will be better as a greenhouse crop, in permanent, so as to not have to dig them up, and bring them indoors, seasonally. They do tend to be a bit top - heavy, at maturity, so be sure to compensate for that, with a much heavier pot, to mitigate tippage.

Since it's gone this way anyway, you may recall what happened to the funny looking guy in Fargo. Then you don't need to worry about planting depth.:-)

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't feel safe being your accomplice in this crime.

Pearl, how did you turn the grass into squash-growing land? I accidently left squash seeds outside and it rained, so now I gotta find somewhere to plant them (when I told my husband this, he laughed, remarking on how addicted I am to growing things, LOL! I've only made 4 new garden beds this year. I don't know what he's talking about )

Nicole Alderman wrote:Pearl, how did you turn the grass into squash-growing land? I accidently left squash seeds outside and it rained, so now I gotta find somewhere to plant them (when I told my husband this, he laughed, remarking on how addicted I am to growing things, LOL! I've only made 4 new garden beds this year. I don't know what he's talking about )

This batch of stuff I didn't. It's planted up in the brushy area, in between trees and such. I already can't get in there to see if any of it is growing. It'll be way into fall before I know, before I can get in there again.
But, from other excursions in weirdness, I know squash will grow if you just dig a small hole and poke it in. Whether you can mow the grass in that area until fall is a different issue So if you got  squash that wants to grow, just pop a hole in anyplace you don't mind not being able to maintain, and let them run. And run they will
The stuff in the yard here that's viney that I'm putting over some grass that's difficult to mow, I put down cardboard and bricks (it's what I had) and the vines will go down over the cardboard.
The neighbor said "you're going to kill that grass!" I said "That's the plan." He looked horrified. He has a perfect lawn, and mows twice a week, so it stays at 2 inches high. I told him he was welcome to some of those melons

Squash doesn't love me. I've never really had a squash plant take over that much. They've been doing a bit better in recent years, so maybe I'm becoming more lovable to them.

I ended up planting it around my fruit trees in the weirdest strawbale-ish-style gardening ever. I plopped down some fresh lawn clipping in a mound under two different fruit trees, topped it with some forest soil because I had no potting soil, and then stuck milk jugs to make it warmer for them and hopefully to keep the ducks from eating them. I put four or five seeds in each mound. I figure if it fails, I gave some forest microrganisms to my fruit trees and some compost/mulch. If it succeeds, I get squash!

My cherry tree was totally surrounded by grass, so I mowed it short, and heaped 3 or 4 inches of grass clippings and then 1/2 inch of duck bedding, and then made four mounds of forest soil for the squash. Maybe I'll get squash. Either way, I helped the tree by killing all the grass/weeds growing around it. Score!

That will probably work well :) Squash is a rowdy when it's happy :)