Research & reports

Berliner, Susanne · · Germany

An ethnographic inquiry into a "refugees welcome" community garden in Germany offers power-critical reflections on social encounters, participation, inequalities, and the dynamics between 'the host' and 'the newcomer' in home-making. The study enhances understanding of how people with refugee biographies shape their surroundings and how communities navigate social heterogeneity. Specifically, it highlights inequalities and power dynamics within the context of home-making.

Pascale Darras, Henri Santiago Sanz · VST - Vie sociale et traitements · France (Toulouse)

Since 2014, the "Japaré" shared garden at the Gérard Marchant psychiatric hospital in Toulouse, France, has served as a unique third place. It welcomes a diverse group of volunteers, including patients, professionals, children, and families, offering a space for voluntary market gardening or simply relaxation, without specific programs or obligations.

Mesut YILDIZ · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Turkey (İzmir)

The Kadifekale Urban Orchard in İzmir, Turkey, was analyzed as a qualitative case study, showing that municipally supported urban agriculture functions as a relational public infrastructure reconfiguring women's labor, care responsibilities, solidarity networks, and public visibility. Based on one year of participant observation, in-depth interviews with 96 women, and focus group discussions, findings revealed women use the orchard to create space outside the home, build solidaristic ties, and increase public visibility. However, the case also revealed a persistent governance tension: municipal support is indispensable, yet women's influence over strategic decisions remains limited.

Julija Bakunowitsch · Urban Planning · Germany

This qualitative study examines a publicly funded urban gardening project in Dortmund, Germany, implemented as a labor-market activation measure on temporarily available land targeting employable welfare recipients. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, it combines the concept of "food justice" with valuation studies to analyze how labor, land, and exchange are valued in everyday practice. The findings reveal tensions between empowerment and dependency, care and control, and social recognition and material precarity: while participants experienced gardening as meaningful work and a source of social participation and belonging, these valuations remained bounded by welfare regulations, temporary land tenure, and charity-based food distribution. The study concludes that such temporary urban gardening projects function as sites of plural, negotiated valuation where justice is enacted only provisionally, through everyday practice, within the limits of welfare governance.

Ajuntament de Barcelona · Ajuntament de Barcelona / Institut Municipal de Parcs i Jardins · Spain

The official page of Barcelona's municipal allotment network, offering 15 allotment sites across the city's ten districts, with plots of 20-40 m2 leased to residents aged 65+ and non-profit organizations. The program formally launched in 1997 with the Can Mestres allotments, though the very first allotment, Hort de l'Avi in Gràcia, dates to 1986 following a resident petition. Plots for individuals are allocated by lottery and for organizations by competition, with stated goals of environmental education and intergenerational coexistence.

· Wikipédia (français) · France

French Wikipedia entry on 'jardin ouvrier' (workers' garden), tracing origins to Félicie Hervieu's initiative in Sedan (1889), Abbé Lemire's 1896 league, the rapid growth of gardens in the Paris region from 48 in 1904 to 1,515 in 1913, and a nationwide total of 250,000 gardens by the end of World War II. The law of 26 July 1952 formalized the term 'jardins familiaux'.

NHS England · NHS England · United Kingdom

NHS England's official page on 'social prescribing', a form of personalised care in which GPs and other health professionals refer patients via link workers to non-clinical, community-based support (group activities, advice services, etc.), centred on the question 'what matters to me?'. It targets people with one or more long-term conditions, those needing low-level mental health support, people who are socially isolated or lonely, and those with complex social needs. NHS England set a goal of at least 900,000 people being referred to social prescribing by 2023/24.

Centre for Mental Health · Centre for Mental Health · United Kingdom

This Centre for Mental Health article describes Sydenham Garden, a community resource in Lewisham, London, whose green space supports mental health through contact with nature, growing and cooking food, and creative activities. About 370 people a year join as 'co-workers' on placements of up to 12 months, and the piece frames the garden as an antidote to loneliness, isolation and exclusion.

Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte · Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte · Germany

An encyclopaedia entry from the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History. It dates the appearance of 'poor gardens' in the duchies to the end of the 1820s and records that by 1826 they existed in 19 towns. In 1830 the Society of Voluntary Friends of the Poor in Kiel allocated plots on the municipal land at the Prüner Schlag at a size of 400 square metres — a size the entry says still holds today. The initiative is attributed to the governor Landgrave Carl of Hesse (1744–1836); the entry notes that the later allotment movement begun by the Leipzig physician D. M. Schreber (1808–1861) turned the poor gardens into Schrebergärten.

· Wikipedia (Deutsch) · Germany

The article on Germany's intercultural gardens. The pilot project grew out of the initiative of immigrant families in Göttingen-Geismar in 1996, and as of 2025 more than 400 intercultural garden projects exist across the country. Support centres on the Stiftung Interkultur in Munich, described as a creation of the foundation partnership anstiftung & ertomis. The association at the movement's origin, Internationale Gärten e. V. Göttingen, was set up in 1998 and runs three gardens covering 11,000 square metres with around 70 families from 25 countries.

Darcy · Health & Social Care in the Community · England, United Kingdom

A before-and-after cohort evaluation of nature-based interventions delivered via green social prescribing referral across English 'test and learn' sites, comparing participants' mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

Noelia Fernández-Salido, Alfonso Gallego-Valadés, Carlos Serra-Castells, Jorge Garcés-Ferrer · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Spain

Analyzes comprehensive benefits of urban gardens for senior active aging. Demonstrates impact on addressing multimorbidity, disability, frailty, and improving mental well-being and social participation.

Patricia Abrantes, Luís Moreno, Maria Lucinda Fonseca, Burcu Borhan Türeli, Christos Stergiadis, Gábor Szüdi, Martin Felix Gajdusek, Carolin V. Zorell · City and Environment Interactions · Europe

This study examined how governance influences inclusion and long-term viability in seven community gardens in Portugal, Türkiye, Austria, Hungary, and Greece. Using a qualitative comparative design with 65 semi-structured interviews and policy analysis, findings showed that community gardens with stronger relational and procedural governance demonstrate higher levels of inclusion, particularly for women, migrants, and low-income residents. However, weak vertical policy integration across local, national, and European levels in most cases limits their broader systemic impact.

Juliane Forßmann, Simon Goebel · Zeitschrift für Flüchtlingsforschung · Germany

An urban gardening project in a residential facility for up to 230 refugees in Germany aims to counteract precarious living conditions. While the garden offers a low-threshold space for knowledge exchange on resource-saving cultivation, biodiversity, and health promotion, this paper also reflects on the project's limits.

Mercedes Muriel Sáiz · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain (Madrid)

This article examines the phenomenon of urban gardens from a socio-community perspective, based on a methodology combining a literature review and participant observation in the community garden Ensancha el huerto (Alcorcón, Madrid). The analysis shows that urban gardens operate as micro-ecosystems of mutual support and learning, but the study also highlights risks associated with institutionalization, commodification, and legal insecurity surrounding such initiatives.

Laura Sheard, Giorgia Previdoli, Wendy Burton, Rachel Benchekroun, Maddy Power, Bob Doherty, Philip Hadley, Ariadne Beatrice Kapetanaki, Shahid Islam, Sairah Mirza, Claire Cameron, Kate E. Pickett, Angela Hutton, Charlotte Edwards, Maria Bryant · PLoS ONE · United Kingdom

This research protocol describes a mixed-methods study aiming to understand which approaches adopted by community food organizations are most likely to prevent the need for emergency food in two multicultural communities in Bradford and Tower Hamlets, England. The study will create a typology of community food organization approaches through surveys, system mapping workshops, and stakeholder interviews, and will conduct a 12-month ethnographic study in up to 10 organizations and longitudinal qualitative research with up to 35 families.

Dennis Raphael · Policy Press eBooks · Canada; United Kingdom

This chapter documents the growth of charitable non-governmental responses to food insecurity in Canada and the UK, including food banks, food diversion schemes, and community gardens. It is shown that these responses are problematic as they fail to address the economic and political causes of food insecurity. Further failures associated with charitable responses include the experience of stigma and degradation by food bank users and the promulgation of the belief that food insecurity is being addressed.

Maciej Lasocki, Kinga Zinowiec-Cieplik, Piotr Majewski, Maja Radziemska, Renata Giedych, Damian Derewońko, Maria Kaczorowska, Anna Szczeblewska, Marta Melon, B J Gawryszewska · Sustainability · Poland (Warsaw)

This study examined family allotment gardens in Warsaw, Poland, as a means of enhancing urban living environments and promoting residents' well-being. The research employed a literature review, qualitative data analysis from individual in-depth and focus group interviews, and a matrix analysis. Findings identified well-being features associated with allotment gardens, including recreation, leisure, impact on physical and mental health, formation of social relationships, and self-production of healthy, affordable food. The results also emphasized the importance of accessibility and the acquisition of new competencies as primary contributions.

Sara Mahdizadeh, Yun Gao · Local Environment · United Kingdom

This qualitative study, based on 16 semi-structured interviews, examined motivations and barriers to participation in community gardens in Huddersfield, UK. Key motivations included social interaction, mental well-being, and skill development. Reported barriers were declining volunteer numbers, physical workload, limited institutional support, and accessibility challenges.

Zuzana Strculová · Revue of Social Sevices / Revue sociálnych služieb · Europe

An article framing community gardens as spaces where people from different social groups meet to co-create and share space, arguing they function not only as ecological or urban projects but as effective tools for social work — particularly in community building, social inclusion and strengthening intergenerational ties. While community gardens often emerge as grassroots civic initiatives, their operation involves a range of actors: local residents, social workers, educators, non-profit organizations, city governments and even businesses — a diversity that, the article argues, is why gardens can be understood as "microworlds of collaboration." Drawing on foreign examples of good practice, it illustrates how community gardens can serve as effective tools in inclusive, environmental and participatory social work.

Adrian J Hayes, Tulane Chiarletti, Stephanie Hares, Sarah Devereux, Stephanie Upton, Daniel McNamara, Sally Brookes · Therapeutic Communities The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities · United Kingdom (South West of England)

This paper reports on the development and running of Foundations Group, a pilot 2-hour nano-therapeutic community (TC) intervention. Conducted within the NHS on City Farm premises in the South West of England for 18 months (2021–2022), the group comprised 11 members, one peer, and three staff. The authors reflected on the TC approach of democratic work, non-expert stance, and using support and challenge to enhance self-agency and belongingness, detailing the group's structure.

Lucas López Sosa, Gloria E. Casanova Molina · Revista Temas Sociológicos · Spain (Barcelona), Chile

This ethnographic study conducted in Barcelona and Santiago de Chile comparatively analyzed the social utilities, conflicts, and tensions faced in the daily management of urban community gardens. The study found significant symbolic and practical similarities between the gardens in both cities, despite geographical and cultural differences, highlighting their value as tools for urban and social regeneration.

Fotini Tsofliou, R. Vijayakumaran, Ashley Wilson, Anthony Mills · Proceedings of The Nutrition Society · United Kingdom (Dorset)

This pilot research, conducted with fourteen adults in disadvantaged areas of Dorset, UK, explored perceptions on the importance and roles of community food garden and kitchen initiatives. Four main themes emerged from the participants' perspectives: tackling food insecurity and sustainability, utilization of climate-friendly and organic food, bridging the intergenerational gap, and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Ion Martínez Lorea · Revista Española de Sociología · Spain (Pamplona)

This article uses Henri Lefebvre's concept of concrete utopia to analyze the practices of community urban gardens in Pamplona-Iruña, Spain. It interrogates their potential and limitations in responding to various situations of social vulnerability and rethinking the relationship between the rural and the urban.

Ada Baldi, Nicolas Lucio Gallo, Anna Lenzi · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Italy

Semi-structured interviews with participants in the "social gardens" of Prato, Italy — plots the municipality assigns to individual pensioners or unemployed people for growing vegetables for home consumption — examined demographic and socio-economic characteristics, cultivated crops, and plot areas. The typical gardener was male, retired, averaged 74 years old, and had a low level of education. A 50 m2 plot with 40% of its area cultivated was estimated to yield about 90 kg of vegetables per year, roughly 61.5% of one person's fruit and vegetable needs. Tomatoes occupied more than 80% of the cultivated area. Vitamin C and Vitamin A showed the highest nutrient contributions, while calcium and sodium showed the lowest.