....several individuals had begun to plant vegetables on St. Georges Hill in Surrey....
http://etext.virginia.edu/...
On 16 April 1649 Henry Sanders sent an alarming letter to the Council of State reporting that several individuals had begun to plant vegetables on St. Georges Hill in Surrey. Sanders reported they had invited "all to come in and help them, and promise them meat, drink, and clothes." They intended to pull down all enclosures and force the people there to come and work with them, and they claimed their number would be several thousand within ten days. "It is feared they have some design in hand." The Council of State sent the letter to Lord Fairfax, lord general of the army, along with a dispatch stating:
By the narrative enclosed your Lordship will be informed of what hath been made to this Council of a disorderly and tumultuous sort of people assembling themselves together not far from Oatlands, at a place called St. Georges Hill; and although the pretence of their being there by them avowed may seem very ridiculous, yet that conflux of people may be a beginning whence things of a greater and more dangerous consequence may grow.
Truly, it plagues the mind.
The mutinous melon. The ungovernable onion. The rebellious radish. Not to mention the disobedient cabbage. It chills one to think of the nonconforming, possibly insurrectionist lettuce.
It turns out it was a certain Gerrard Winstanley who instigated these seditious plantings of the vegetables, the words of Gerrard Winstanley which inspired the vegetables, even our humble self:
from the Book of Acts, chapter two, verses 44 and 45: "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need." Winstanley argued that "in the beginning of time God made the earth. Not one word was spoken at the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another, but selfish imaginations did set up one man to teach and rule over another."
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Very dangerous, possibly ominously dangerous these vegetables and their dissenting, insurgent thoughts. What is this, to suggest that one man is not to be set up to teach and rule over another? Sacre bleu!
Even today these dissenting vegetables have not desisted in their efforts to foment revolution for we have the insurgence of The Guerilla Gardener:
Guerrilla gardening is political gardening, a form of direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists. It is related to land rights, land reform, and permaculture. Activists take over ("squat") an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it.
Some guerrilla gardeners carry out their actions at night, in relative secrecy, to sow and tend a new vegetable patch or flower garden. Others work more openly, seeking to engage with members of the local community, as illustrated in the examples that follow. It has grown into a form of proactive activism or pro-activism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
These Savage Guerilla Gardeners have a website:
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/
Oh! What to do about the riotous arugula that may spring up at your feet! One will be obliged to go around always looking at the suspicious sprouts of green that may be screaming Anarchy Forever! One never knows, you know.
This person, Gerrard Winstanley, tries to say that he was not a sexual revolutionary:
In February, Winstanley wrote to defend the Diggers against charges labelling them as Ranters, a group of sexual revolutionaries. In a postscript to this defense, Winstanley recorded that imposters were going about the country soliciting funds for the Diggers by showing a letter purportedly bearing his signature. The document was a forgery, Winstanley insisted: "we desire if any are willing to cast a gift in . . . that they would send it to our owne hands by some trustie friend of their owne."
http://etext.virginia.edu/...
But we know in our hearts how lustfully lewd and licentious these vegetables can be, promiscuously seducing honeybees and other insects, using these naive little creatures to wantonly reproduce themselves, even practicing widespread miscegenation to produce hybrid vegetables, inoculating innocent gardeners with their lustful ways, whatever this Winstanley fellow says. For, if Winstanley truly was not a carnal, libidinist sexual revolutionary, why was one of his last writings called by him, The Burning Bush?