In the early 1990's, Newark city officials razed dozens of abandoned buildings, the skeletal remains of the 1967 riots, leaving acres of vacant lots throughout town. Over time, many of these open areas became meadows.

Just across the street from the police precint where the riots started, on a block that once held the Kreuger Brewery, butterflies and grasshoppers reign. I can gather a meal's worth of dandelion, queen anne's lace, and wild radish during an August lunchbreak.

Imagine what would happen if I spent a day this April sowing wheat berries where a city once burned. Imagine sunflowers, and cucumbers, and pumpkins, and tomatoes, and morning glories "magically" erupting from a once-dead urban lot.

That would be a guerrilla garden. Maybe my guerrilla garden. Maybe even our guerrilla garden.

Want to be a guerrilla gardener? Find an abandoned piece of land. Beautify a railroad track. Liberate some sunflower seeds along the highway. Produce food, create beauty.