Urban Farm DB
← Back to cases
Community gardenActiveSince 2012

Prazelenina Community Garden

Prague, Czechia · Operator: Prazelenina (civic association founded by architect Matěj Petránek and café owner Jakub Novák)

Overview

The first community garden in Prague and the pioneer of the Czech urban-gardening movement. Combining small bag/bed plots with a café, it became popular as a place to 'grow relationships along with vegetables' and triggered the spread of community gardens to other districts of the city.

Citizen participation

Prague's first community garden, opened in 2012 in the Holešovice district by architect Matěj Petránek and partners. For an annual fee (about CZK 1,000) members rent a 1 m² growing plot, with shared beds for herbs, pumpkins and strawberries. Around 100 gardeners and 30 volunteers run the garden, and its small café is the social heart of the community.

Operating model

Non-profit operation by a civic association, covering costs through plot fees and the garden café, with volunteers handling day-to-day management. The aim is to cultivate neighbourly relations in the city rather than profit.

Impact

Led the spread of community gardens in Prague, influencing support organisations such as KOKOZA and municipal community-garden programs. It has also been documented as a case study in European research on sharing and the commons.

Crops

  • vegetables
  • herbs
  • pumpkins
  • strawberries

Scale

About 100 gardeners renting 1 m² bag/bed plots plus communal beds, run with around 30 volunteers; season from April to October, with a small community café

Sources(3)

Related cases

Community garden
1997

Junkan Seikatsu Lab Cardboard-Box Composting (Fukuoka)

JPFukuoka, Japan

A Fukuoka-based citizen group that has researched and spread the 'cardboard-box compost' method—decomposing kitchen waste using only microbes—for over two decades, turning household food scraps into compost within the neighborhood to build a 2-km-radius nutrient cycle.

CompostDIYOrganic cycle+3

jun-namaken.com+2

Community garden
2016

KIC Garden (Chuangzhi Nongyuan / Knowledge & Innovation Community Garden)

CNShanghai, China

Opened in July 2016 as Shanghai's first open-community urban farm. A narrow vacant lot, left unused because a major municipal tunnel runs beneath it, was transformed into a resident-participatory permaculture garden.

CommunityFood educationCompost+2

journal.hep.com.cn+1

Community garden
2014

Shanghai Community Garden Movement (SEEDING / Clover Nature School)

CNShanghai, China

A citywide movement begun in 2014 to spread resident-participatory community gardens across Shanghai. Led by the non-profit Clover Nature School, co-founded by Tongji University's Liu Yuelai, it turns neglected spaces into citizen-built edible green areas.

CommunityFood educationCompost+3

theworldofchinese.com+1

Community garden
2015

Edible Routes (Delhi kitchen gardens & farmlets)

INDelhi, India

A Delhi-based eco-initiative teaching urban dwellers organic growing that has set up 500+ kitchen gardens since 2015. Its 'Farmlets' programme lets citizens rent plots to grow their own food, broadening urban-farming participation.

CommunityFood educationOrganic cycle+2

edibleroutes.com+1

Prazelenina Community Garden — Urban Farm DB