Strike waves; student protests; youth radicalisations. These are the sorts of things that you hope are likely to help build an organisation. Unless I’ve missed it gardening has not been one of the typical methods found in the Marxist canon to galvanise new leaderships. Maybe it’s time for a rethink.
The tenants and residents association (TRA) on my estate re-emerged a few years ago in a struggle against the council’s plans to transfer its housing stock to housing associations. Last year we didn’t manage to elect new officers or a committee when I wanted to stand down as chair and the secretary had other business to attend to. And so it became moribund.
Suddenly out of nowhere a group of long term residents got together with an ambitious plan to covert a disused, overgrown garden beside the community centre into a vegetable and herb garden. The idea is that you sign up, agree to put in a bit of work and get a share of the vegetables that are grown. A diverse, ethnically mixed bunch are now digging, sowing, weeding and whatever else you do in gardens. There are compost bins, raised beds and sprouting seeds where once there was a patch of overgrown grass and there’s generally someone pottering around a space that a few months ago was never walked on.
The impact has been incredibly positive. Last night we had our first ever contested elections for the TRA and now have a committee of six plus three officers. My insistence that meetings have to finish by 8pm is as popular as ever and I’m back in the chair.
As a model this is probably not too transferable. It requires people who have a passion for gardening combined with a strong community spirit and some time on their hands. Yet it’s encouraging that almost spontaneously communities can feel a need for organisation as the way to improve the patch of land where they live.
Liam redux 
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