Research & reports

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.

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.

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.

Baptiste Grard, N. Bel, Marchal, Nicolas, Frédéric Madre, Jean‐François Castell, Philippe Cambier, Sabine Houot, Nastaran Manouchehri, Stéphane Besançon, Jean‐Charles Michel, Claire Chenu, Nathalie Frascaria‐Lacoste, Christine Aubry · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · France (Paris)

A 2012 pilot experiment in Paris, France, tested simple rooftop gardening systems using local urban organic waste as crop substrates. Measurements of production levels and heavy metal content in crops and substrates showed high crop production with limited inputs, low heavy metal pollutants in edible parts, and positive yield influence from layered substrates and earthworm inoculation. These results suggest rooftop gardening is feasible and has potential for urban resiliency, though further assessment of roof types, pollution levels, and sustainability is needed.

Miren Rekondo Iparraguirre · TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa) · Europe

This doctoral thesis explores the development of eco-citizenship competence in school gardens, specifically through collaborative technological design activities. Elementary school students designed and assembled an irrigation system for their school garden over ten activities. Analysis showed students integrated elements from various design proposals without exclusive opposition, and that design conflicts led to a more dynamic and complex garden model. The study also found differences in argumentative discourse structure and dynamics between scientific argumentation and technological design activities.

Bitella G. · Sensors · Italy

Presents a low-cost open-hardware platform based on an open-source Arduino microcontroller board and inexpensive high-frequency dielectric probes to monitor soil water content at multiple depths plus air and soil temperatures.

Robert Mattock · · United Kingdom

This article discusses the decline in horticultural skills and work ethic in the United Kingdom over the last century, attributing it to the welfare state's de-incentivization of the workforce. The diverse plant vocabulary and cultivation skills once common among Victorian gardeners and landscape designers are now largely lost, impacting the conservation of designed landscapes. While efforts are being made to revive school gardens and promote apprenticeships and craft skills, the article concludes that more work is needed to re-establish a traditional work ethic in apprenticeships.

马杰提卡·波特尔克, 怀尔德·维特森 · 公共艺术 · Netherlands (Amsterdam)

This project was implemented in 2009 in Nieuw-West, Amsterdam, Netherlands, by artists Majetika Poterke and Wilder Vitsen. It utilized a community garden and community kitchen as its medium, incorporating building materials, energy infrastructure, and a plant garden.

Paz Sastre Domínguez · Revista de Estudios de Juventud · Spain

A Spanish essay reconsidering the industrial revolutions through the growth of advertising and design, examining social practices that apply New Institutional Economics organizational models—originating from the free-software movement—to material goods such as food, DIY 3D printers, open wear, open design, urban gardens, DIY biology, DIY drones, open-source hardware, non-GMO seeds, waste, bartering, social currencies and Bitcoin. It frames these projects as new forms of social contract, moral machines floating outside the state and market, but draws a parallel with current generic-drug monopolies to argue the post-patent world may not turn out as imagined.

Michael Koch, Martin Köhler · · Germany

Against the backdrop of debates on densifying German cities to meet housing demand and searching for new partnerships between citizens, businesses and municipalities, a study focuses on "new open spaces" beyond officially recorded green and open areas — traffic junctions, rail embankments, industrial brownfields, parking lots, streets, sidewalks, private gardens, schoolyards, corporate green areas, delivery zones, courtyards, rubble sites, quays, allotment gardens, dikes, drainage channels, retention basins, bridges, building setback areas, and driveways. These spaces host trends such as urban gardening, urban exploration and parkour, and across four volumes on Hamburg the study examines their actual and potential contribution to open-space provision for the whole urban population, not only the inner city or young urban milieus.

Vesna Popović, Jelena Živanović Miljković · Institute of Agricultural Economics eBooks · Europe

A study analyzing trends in community gardening in Europe, with particular focus on Belgrade, Serbia, in relation to permaculture design principles. It notes that while intensive urban agriculture carries ecological risks related to soil, water, air, climate, biodiversity, and landscape, citizens seeking healthy food and closer contact with nature are turning toward extensive, often organic, forms of urban agriculture such as community gardening based on permaculture design, and it discusses the role of such gardening in smart-city development and its establishment potential in Belgrade.

Barbara Uhlig · edoc Publication server (Humboldt University of Berlin) · Germany

This study analyzes guerrilla gardening as a protest movement where activists plant flowers, trees, and vegetables on derelict urban spaces without owner permission. The motivations for guerrilla gardening are pragmatic, ecological, political, and aesthetic, though its artistic status is often denied. The study demonstrates that guerrilla gardening aligns with George Dickie's institutional theory of art and can be classified as art.

Gillean M. Denny · · United Kingdom

This study investigated the ability of urban agriculture (UA) to decrease food-related greenhouse gas emissions, using a life cycle analysis of tomatoes, produce surveys in East Anglia, and household surveys of 183 UA-practicing households. It found that UA participation can reduce an individual's tomato consumption emissions from 52.4 kg CO2e/yr to 11.2 kg CO2e/yr. This reduction amounts to 44% from a non-UA, low-emission diet and 78% from a supermarket diet.

Hubert Więckowski · Jagiellonian University Repository (Jagiellonian University) · Germany (Berlin)

This article describes the 8th edition of the Synaxis Baltica Summer Academy, organized in Potsdam and Berlin, Germany. It presents the significant aims of the Synaxis Baltica Summer Academy, established in 2002, and briefly describes the main topics of the 8th academy, which included community gardens and guerilla gardening. Information about lectures, experts, and participants' tasks and obligations is also provided.

A.J. Visser, J.E. Jansma, A.J.G. Dekking, M.J.M. Klieverik · Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling · Europe (Netherlands)

A guide compiling the experiences, learning moments, and tips of those involved in urban agriculture initiatives in the Netherlands, along with an indication of what is needed to further develop urban agriculture in the country.

Stadt Leipzig, Amt für Stadterneuerung und Wohnungsbauförderung · Stadt Leipzig · Germany

The fifth booklet in a series published by the City of Leipzig's 'Careful Urban Renewal' pilot project, addressing vacant lots (Baulücken) created by wartime destruction and East German-era demolitions. It explains how a 'Gestattungsvereinbarung' (usage-permission agreement) between the city and private landowners enables temporary conversion of vacant lots into green space, play areas, or parking without affecting the underlying building rights.

E. F. Schumacher · Blond & Briggs · United Kingdom

E.F. Schumacher's 1973 book challenges the mainstream "bigger is better" economic ethos, advocating small, "appropriate" technologies as an alternative. Its four parts cover the modern economy, resources, the developing world, and organization/ownership; in 1995 the Times Literary Supplement named it one of the 100 most influential books since World War II.