Research & reports

Young Hyoo Kwon, Su‐Jin Kim, Ha Kyeong Oh, Sang-Kyun Han, Seak Jin Kim · Journal of people, plants, and environment · Global

This study examined the effects of media kinds and container forms on the growth of herbaceous and woody plants for urban greenery and landscape gardens. Five plant species were experimented on three different media kinds (horticultural substrate, decomposed granite, and a mix) and two container forms (vinyl pot and plug tray). Most species experimented on horticultural substrate tended to have the highest growth rate in plant height, root length, number of leaves, and fresh biomass weight. The use of plug trays was found to be more applicable than vinyl pots, considering plant growth rates and shipment convenience.

Chiara Zonda · · Italy (Milan)

This abstract is a personal reflection on the author's childhood experiences with a family garden in Milan's hinterland, Italy. It describes the author's fascination with gardens and the sense of peace and community they provided. The author then notes realizing that urban gardens could serve as a strong tool for social aggregation within a neighborhood or community, leading to further research on existing successful urban garden initiatives worldwide.

Heather Yeatman · Research Online (University of Wollongong) · Global

This chapter focuses on how food literacy is developed through experiences with food production in different settings, including agriculture, urban food production, and home and school gardens.

Marie-Dominique Pivetaud et Jean-Claude Legendre, Entrepreneurs chez Nature et potager en ville · · Global

This workshop focuses on the sale of pre-vegetated planters to individuals and businesses as a new market within the urban agriculture sector.

Stéphane Stéphane · · Canada

Stephane Groleau gave a talk on Urban Vegan Agriculture at the Montreal Vegan Festival on November 6, 2016. The event also featured an information booth on veganic agriculture. The talk highlighted that growing food in cities without animal exploitation is possible, despite urban agriculture often relying on such practices.

Hae-Yeon Yoo · International Journal of Smart Home · South Korea (Seoul)

This study evaluated the purpose and method of new facilities for urban farming in neighborhood regeneration during the establishment of the castle village regeneration plan in Seoul's Haengchon District. It examined a method to reduce residents' economic burden and generate profits with neighbors by utilizing unused rooftop spaces of multi-family houses. A prefabricated greenhouse designed for lightness and miniaturization was selected for the rooftop of "Haengchon Lot," the revitalization center of Haengchon-dong.

Francesca Ostuzzi, Peter Conradie, Lieven De Couvreur, Jan Detand, Jelle Saldien · The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning · Global

This case study explored opportunities for 47 Industrial Design Engineering students to share open-ended urban gardening design solutions during a two-week intensive course, using Instructables.com. Open sharing of local solutions triggered global discussions and reported instances of re-appropriation. However, the study also showed difficulty in keeping students engaged in global discussions, with online activity dropping to near silence after a few weeks, and challenges in tracking re-appropriation cycles.

Fabrizio Valpreda, Ilaria Zonda · Sensors · Global

This study presents Grüt, a gardening sensor kit for children, aiming to change children's attitudes towards food and reduce waste by increasing their knowledge about food production and consumption. The project combines real and virtual reality, connecting plants to the Internet of Things via sensors and an app. User testing was executed with Dutch children in Amsterdam.

Sarah Jurkiewicz · Social Science Open Access Repository (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) · Global

This study analyses two cultural initiatives in Kuwait City -- one organizing walking tours, another creating an urban garden in a public park -- as new forms of reclaiming urban space. It examines the entrepreneurial frameworks, from "social entrepreneurship" to "commons," through which these initiatives are articulated, but finds that despite their aim of constructing participatory spaces, the initiatives have nevertheless been targeted toward a particular stratum of Kuwaiti society -- chiefly middle-class Kuwaitis with a cosmopolitan outlook.

Shlrene Quaik, Kaizar Hossain, Mahamad Hakimi Ibrahim · International Journal of Agricultural Research · Global

Liquids derived from vermicomposting of pre-composted cow dung—vermiwash and vermicomposting leachate—were diluted to prevent leaf scorching and applied to sweet potato as a foliar treatment. Chemical analysis confirmed the presence of plant nutrients, and increases in chlorophyll content (chlorophyll a, b and total) and improved nutrient distribution in sweet potato leaves were observed. The results indicate vermiwash and vermicomposting leachate have potential as organic foliar fertilizers, and their application in field-scale urban farming fertigation is feasible, though enriching their nutrient content further would require adding other nutrient-rich substrates.

Silke Ötsch · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Europe

Working from the premise that the "static-hedonic" economic ideal type — historically cast in a negative light against Joseph Schumpeter's ideal of the entrepreneur — is being positively reframed within the degrowth-critical movement and in writing on urban gardening, an essay examines the conceptions of life and economic activity held by people involved in the degrowth-oriented Transition movement, based on qualitative, problem-centered interviews. It poses the question of whether the figure of the gardener (Gärtner/Gärtnerin) embodies a new guiding model (Leitbild) of economic activity that could replace the entrepreneur.

Sandra Yamile Salamanca Corredor, Brayan Osnaider Diaz Morales · · Colombia

This pilot study, focused on the La Estancia neighborhood of Bogotá, assessed the technical and economic feasibility of implementing home practices for utilizing household waste -- (1) vermiculture for organic waste, (2) urban agriculture and vertical gardens, and (3) reuse of greywater for non-potable uses. It also investigated whether residents of the neighborhood already use these practices for managing waste and greywater, and their level of interest in the topic.

Krista Harper, Ana Isabel Afonso · Anthropology in Action · Europe

This study used a Photovoice methodology with an association of urban gardeners in Lisbon, Portugal, to examine their attempt to transform informal or clandestine garden spaces into an "urban agricultural park." Presenting initial findings, it describes how a coalition of gardeners from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds used a participatory design process to reclaim land and create a shared space, and how residents conceptualized their use of urban space, built civic identities through gardening, and made political claims to access and control vacant land.

Hegde V.N., Hosur V.S., Rathod S.K., Harsoor P.A., Narayana K.B. · Energy, Sustainability and Society · India

Designs and fabricates an indirect, active-type, low-cost solar dryer from locally available, biodegradable materials. Evaluates drying characteristics and quality using banana, a crop with high post-harvest losses in India.

· PLOS ONE · Global

Describes the design and construction of an inexpensive homemade plant growth chamber built from low-cost materials as an accessible alternative to costly commercial units for controlled indoor plant growth.

· HortTechnology · Global

An automated irrigation controller built from open-source Arduino boards, capacitance soil-moisture sensors and solenoid valves that logs volumetric water content and triggers irrigation by threshold; inexpensive and suited to home gardens, greenhouses and nurseries.

Daniel Andrés Vega Castro · Luna Azul · Colombia

A 2015 descriptive study in Colombia evaluated the production of criolla potato Solanum phureja 'Paisa' clone in an urban context. High-density polyethylene double-bottom containers and agroecological production techniques, including fertilization based on organic matter, minerals, and microorganisms, were used. Results showed an average production of 528.36 g/plant for S. phureja in containers, indicating a viable alternative compared to average production in Colombia and the department of Cundinamarca.

Stephane Bour · · Global

Ecotrancoso focuses on restoring life to an ecosystem that has been transformed into a desert by unsustainable agricultural practices. This is achieved through the creation of a food forest.

Andrew Koval · Educational Media Reviews Online · United States (New York City)

The 27-minute documentary film "Brooklyn Farmer" (2014) covers organic urban rooftop farming as a business. The film offers perspectives on the cost of farm labor's exposure to pesticides versus the increased cost of organic vegetables, citing aesthetics, supply chain reduction, and human health as benefits of urban farming. While noted for its informative text and enhanced production value, a stated limitation is that it should have featured farmers in a more traditional vegetable production capacity to provide a diversity of opinion concerning the market.

Gunwon Lee, Yunnam Jeong, Seongkyun Ji, Seiyong Kim · Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society · South Korea

This study aimed to improve Biotope Area Ratio (BAR) systems to address the increasing demand for urban agriculture, particularly in residential complexes where architectural and urban planning responses are lacking. It found that existing BAR systems are limited for crop cultivation because they only consider vegetation. The research proposes expanding BAR systems to include plant growth capacity factors, such as daylight, planting interval, area, and soil depth, to better accommodate urban agriculture demands.

Abdul‐Halim Abubakari, Laura Atuah, B. Banful, Hypolite Bayor · Journal of Soil Science and Environmental Management · Ghana

A study in Ghana reviewed literature and surveyed farmers on soil amendments for urban horticulture. The review found that research on soil amendments has been limited to land management and nutrient recovery, not addressing quality issues for specific production systems. Farmers adopt varying application rates due to lack of standardization, and barriers include technology for collection, funds for purchase, and labor employment.

Neda Jafari, Mohd Yazid Mohd Yunos, Md Azree Othuman Mydin, Osman Mohd Tahir · Applied Mechanics and Materials · Malaysia

This quantitative survey research examined residents' awareness and preferences regarding urban agriculture at rooftop gardens in The Heritage condominium in Selangor and Sri Putramas 2 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The survey results indicated that residents who participated agreed with the awareness of urban agriculture at rooftop gardens. The study aims to promote sustainable building and the use of urban agriculture in residential rooftop gardening.

Zhongqi Cheng, Anna Paltseva, Ireyena Li, Tatiana Morin, Hermine Huot, Sara Perl Egendorf, Zulema Su, Roxanne Yolanda, Kishan Singh, Leda Lee, Michael Grinshtein, Ying Liu, Kayo Green, Win Wai, Bushra Wazed, Richard K. Shaw · Soil Science · United States (New York City)

This study analyzed trace metal concentrations (Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb) in 1,652 soil samples from 904 gardens in New York City. It found that many soils exceeded New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Soil Cleanup Objective (SCO) limits for Pb, Cr, As, and Cd. Specifically, about 21% of community garden samples and 71% of home garden samples exceeded SCO limits for Pb and As, and less than 3% of all samples met criteria for unrestricted use.

Jong-Jin Lee, Ki Woon Chang, Ki-Pil Han, Joo-Hwa Hong, Dong‐Soek Lee, Young‐Jun Kim · 유기물 자원화 · South Korea

This study manufactured kitchen garden soil for urban agriculture and conducted a growth experiment with lettuce. Soil mixed with peatmoss, livestock manure, cocopeat, zeolite, and microbial fertilizer in a 49:35:10:5:1 ratio showed appropriate levels for pH, total nitrogen, available phosphate, cations, and salt content. In the lettuce growth experiment using this manufactured soil, leaf length increased by 21%, leaf width by 20%, chlorophyll content by 17%, and biomass by 22% compared to the control group.

심주영, 조경진 · 한국조경학회지 = Journal of Korean institute of landscape architecture · South Korea

This study aims to rediscover urban gardening as an everyday culture overlooked during urbanization. Focusing on Haebangchon, an organic urban residential area in Yongsan-dong 2-ga, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, it examines how urban gardening, in its modern sense, connects with the lives of single-family home residents to improve the physical environment and foster relationships among local residents, through understanding its characteristics and spatial features.