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Urban community gardening is emerging as a form of quiet activism challenging the corporate food system. In urban community gardening, quiet activism subtly challenges the dominant corporate food system. However, research tends to overlook its presence and impact in global South cities, where issues of food insecurity and corporatisation are acute. There is a gap in research on urban community gardening activism, with a focus mainly on global North cities. Global South cities and populations face unique challenges in the corporate food system that require attention and exploration in scholarly literature. We draw on qualitative research conducted with urban community gardeners in Cape Town, South Africa. Through interviews and observations, the study investigates how these gardeners engage in quiet activism to challenge the corporate food system. We find that community gardens are subtle but potent platforms for bolstering local food movements and fostering healthier dietary practices by cultivating and sharing produce. Quiet activism through community gardening offers a nuanced approach to challenging the corporate food system. The study highlights the need to recognise and understand varying levels of activism intensity and their implications for reshaping urban food systems. We underscore the need to discern the distinct embodiments necessitated by different modes of activism. Understanding these different modes of activism is crucial for comprehending their varying impacts on challenging and reshaping the corporate food system. This nuanced approach reveals the transformative potential inherent in community gardening practices. Community gardening in Cape Town exemplifies the transformative potential of understated acts in food activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the more-than-human politics of a community garden in Rotterdam, as an expression of sustainable and resilient city making. Challenging the anthropocentrism underlying most research on the politics of urban sustainability/resilience and urban gardening, the paper proposes a more-than-human assemblage approach to urban gardening politics. I argue that urban gardens can be understood as more-than-human configurations and conceptualised as urban garden assemblages. Such assemblages are processes with different temporalities and types of agencies (insects, plants, soil and fences) and can be analytically understood as more-than-human: (1) relations and performances; (2) power hierarchies/resistances; and (3) ethical co-becomings. Building on participatory ethnography, interviews and (online) documents, the paper then presents an empirical account of the Gandhi-garden, a community garden in Rotterdam, embedded in the global Transition Towns movement. The empirical case shows how mundane acts of pulling weeds and using permacultural planting methods are more-than-human place-making practices. It also highlights how, for example, human–soil, human–seed and human–bee entanglements challenge urban neoliberalism while gardeners experiment with sustainable food and a non-violent economy. The paper illustrates the ethico-political expressions of more-than-human community gardening through solidarity bonds with Palestine via olive trees and non-violence thinking, as well as some human/non-human ambivalences when dealing with dog waste and potentially harvest-stealing birds. Finally, the paper presents some reflections and contributions regarding scholarship in the fields of urban gardening, and sustainable/resilient city making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban community gardens, once seen as a counter to neoliberal subjectivity, are now perceived as inadvertently reinforcing neoliberal dominance, challenging the progressive goals of urban gardening. This study investigates how the state shapes urban community gardens in alignment with neoliberal principles, potentially diluting their intended advantages. By analysing policies and interviewing state actors supporting urban gardening initiatives and activists, I argue that the state actively cultivates neoliberal subjectivities in these contexts. Unfortunately, state policies and projects often fail to address the root causes of food and nutrition insecurity in urban areas. This neoliberalisation of urban community gardening diminishes their potential to act as tools for advancing food justice in historically disadvantaged communities in Cape Town. Nevertheless, there is hope in the agency of gardeners who are not passive participants in this process. I conclude that relying on the state to implement projects for a more equitable food system may not be a dependable strategy. Instead, urban gardeners must carefully select their allies to effectively pursue their goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban gardening is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S., in metro and nonmetro communities alike, to address rapid urbanization and food insecurity. Urban gardens are incredibly diverse systems, and likely have equally diverse invertebrate communities. To support this growing trend, more information is needed on invertebrate communities that impact crop production. The primary objective of this study was to describe invertebrate community composition at 10 urban community gardens across two counties in Indiana. We also aimed to identify possible mechanisms that determine community assemblages, such as garden size, surrounding land use, ground cover management, and crop diversity. Using pitfall traps, sticky cards, and in-situ visual assessments, we determined that herbivores represent the dominant feeding guild at community gardens, and herbivore counts were highest on zucchini and tomato. However, sentinel prey releases suggested that predators and parasitoids are important regulators of pest populations. Overall, the assemblage of feeding guilds was similar across sites, suggesting a common metapopulation present in the surrounding landscape. On-farm practices that had the greatest influence on insect diversity were crop diversity, the presence of floral resources, and ground cover management. Insect diversity was positively correlated with crop diversity, and pollination activity was associated with flowering crops, namely dill. Parasitoid counts on sticky cards were often associated with sites that had more ground cover, such as straw mulch. This study provides useful insights on the dominant invertebrate groups present at urban community gardens in Indiana and accessible on-farm practices to improve farm biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the boom in urban living has come a boom in urban gardening. In particular, urban community gardening is an increasingly popular form of horticultural production, community involvement and connection to nature. Through the establishment and management of community gardens, biodiversity can flourish, with community gardens as 'hotspots' of flora and fauna within the urban matrix. Gardeners can deeply connect with the natural elements of gardens and thus learn about and gain appreciation for the natural world. Such interactions can combat the loss of nature experiences in cities. Despite their benefits for nature and for people, community gardens are threatened ecosystems as often temporary fixtures in city landscapes due to lack of land tenure and policy protection.In this perspective, we recognize community gardens as an important ecosystem in urban conservation and argue for the defence of urban community gardens by city policy. We formalize this activity and the value of these ecosystems with scientific evidence from ecological and social‐ecological research in 39 community gardens in Berlin and Munich, Germany.Although our data reveal that these gardens support large amounts of biodiversity and catalyse human‐nature connections, a lack of comprehensive documentation of social‐ecological benefits at the city level can make community gardens vulnerable to urban planning threats; we have seen losses of multiple research sites in the last 4 years of biodiversity research.Policy implications: To protect community gardens now and for future urban generations, we call for systematic and comprehensive data collection on community gardening activities and policy support for these urban ecosystems. Some cities are starting to do this and this can be scaled out. We argue for the recognition of urban community gardens as a physical land use and also of the gardeners themselves as important habitat managers and stewards of urban biodiversity. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's current urban gardening promotion policies mainly focus on community gardens and lack in-depth research on the differentiated needs of different urban gardeners. To meet the diverse needs of China's gardeners, this study proposes a typology that classifies gardeners into urban native and migrant ones based on their urban and rural living experiences in China. A questionnaire survey conducted in the core area of Chongqing city revealed significant differences and some similarities in gardening motivations and behaviors between urban native and migrant gardeners: (1) Although most of the gardeners approved of the value of food production and green scenery creation that Chinese urban gardening has, and disapproved of its value for family income generation, the urban native gardeners' disapproving attitude towards family income generation, and their approval of green scenery creation were more assertive, while on the contrary, the urban migrant gardeners had a more robust approval attitude towards food production. (2) The urban native gardeners preferred proximity and small private spaces for a combination of ornamental vegetation and edible vegetables. In contrast, the urban migrated gardeners preferred larger areas for gardening in non-community spaces and leaned towards edible vegetables. (3) Both have shared motivations related to the recreation and ecological conservation values of urban gardening. Given the above differences and similarities, this paper proposes an urban gardening development strategy that meets the needs of the two types of gardeners in China, including space planning and design, operation, and management of gardening spaces, and organization of activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban horticulture represents a sustainable way of dealing with the challenges of modern cities, including urbanization processes, population growth tendencies, a lack of green areas, environmental pollution and food insecurity. This study aimed to (1) investigate the perceptions of citizens of Novi Sad municipality, Republic of Serbia, toward urban horticulture and (2) assess plant materials appropriate for cultivation in urban gardens and suggest urban spaces completely designed with the use of various forms of edible fruit species, including roses. The same questionnaire was administered with a four-year time gap, in 2019 and again in 2023, before and after the coronavirus pandemic. To investigate plant materials suitable for urban gardening, relevant articles in Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science platforms were searched. The questionnaires' results showed significant differences between the two years concerning respondents' attitudes toward urban horticulture's impact on food safety, socialization and personal health and development, which could have been influenced by the pandemic. Vegetables were grown by most respondents, commonly in household yards and gardens. The main motivations for participating in community urban gardens were to grow food for their own consumption and to make charitable contributions, followed by the motivation 'to socialize and relax'. Exemplary designs of an urban pocket, kindergarten yard and atrium courtyard are presented, providing insights into numerous possibilities for landscaping with fruits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ongoing academic debate shows that urban community gardening (CG) has diverse governance models with differing roles of city administration and citizens. This article uses an empirical case study conducted in the city of Tampere, Finland, to explore what I call the "operational space" of urban CG seen from the viewpoint of city officials. Two rounds of interviews were conducted with eight city officials, and a discourse analysis was applied for the data. As an analytic term developed in this article, the operational space emerges by administrative policies and practices that enable or constrain urban gardening under two general trends of urban governance: institutional ambiguity and neoliberal urban development. In this case, the operational space was rather rigid and narrow. The five main discourses on benefit, control of space, scarcity, unclarity, and newness referred to a clear aim to enable urban gardening. However, the discourses were restricted to strategic, limited, and instrumental levels, as the political-strategic aims of enabling urban gardening contradicted the administrative practices. The results show that cautiousness and unclarity in the administrative-political culture tend to lead to institutional ambiguity. In conclusion, operational space analysis is helpful to uncover the problems and possibilities between CG and city administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is impacting the ecological, social and technological aspects of urban gardens. Gardens experience threats (e.g., water scarcity) but are also responding through adaptation strategies (e.g., selecting drought-resilient plants). A synthetic overview of how urban gardens are affected by climate change and responding to climate change is unclear. Here, we systematically reviewed articles and book chapters published in the last two decades (2000–2022) to illustrate the relationship between climate change and urban gardening. From 72 documents analyzed with Nvivo Software, we found that there has been an increase in academic publications. Universities from the US (14) and Germany (9) universities are the dominant producers. Evidence shows that climate change can have negative impacts on cities, people and urban food. Suggestions on how to build the adaptation capacity of urban gardens include collecting rainwater, changing plant selection, changing planting times, applying vegetative cover on the soil and other practices. For cities, community and allotment gardens are helpful for adaptation, mitigation and resilience. This includes the capacity to regulate the microclimate, to reduce urban heat island effects and to buffer urban floods, the power to capture carbon, the ability to create social networks and other socio-environmental benefits for urban climate planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research largely focuses on the role of allotment gardens, the challenges facing them, and the direction of their future development in urban environments. The main idea behind the introduction of allotment gardens was to improve the living conditions and food supply of workers and the underprivileged. The impact of allotment gardening does not only concern the allotment gardeners but also the general public and the environment. It is important to emphasise that allotments have impacts not only on food production and outdoor physical activity, but also on the reuse of idle or neglected land, community development, therapeutic and nutritional benefits, and psychological benefits for allotment holders and residents. For this reason, this study captures six broad themes related to allotments: (1) community participation and cohesion, (2) health and well-being, (3) economic opportunities, (4) pollution, (5) urban planning and development, and (6) sustainable environment. The research is a systematic review in which steps were taken to minimise bias in the identification, selection, and summarisation of studies. The initial literature selection was based on a keyword search (title, abstract, and keywords) of the comprehensive literature databases Web of Science (all years) and Scopus (all years). The total scientific literature on which this review is based includes 162 research articles published between 1978 and July 2022. This work aims to fill these gaps and analyse existing knowledge by providing a detailed review of the academic literature, focusing not only on the benefits of community gardens and allotments in urban areas, but also on the existing problems related to allotments and urban gardening. Possible directions of development are also analysed based on the legal regulations in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, the surveyed community gardeners quickly and autonomously set rules through discussions and continued their activities even with some restrictions. • Community gardeners felt more spiritual well-being than physical health benefits. • The need to care for the vegetables was also a motivation to continue their activities. • Community gardens can play a pivotal role in bolstering urban resilience. Numerous studies underscore the role of community gardens in sustaining food security, physical and mental health, and social networks during the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to community resilience in different contexts of each country. Despite the rich history of urban gardening, Japan remains a geographical gap. This study conducted a mixed-method case study in suburban Tokyo and addresses the unique response of community gardeners to the pandemic within the Japanese context. The survey revealed that gardeners proactively established rules to navigate the crisis quickly through discussion and sustained their gardening activities. The findings also showed that their continuing activities helped the gardeners maintaining physical and mental health, and notably keeping their ikigai , sense of purpose in life in the unusual days. Thus, this study provided new evidence that community gardens may contribute to urban resilience, which indicates the significance of incorporating them into urban green space planning as a preparatory measure for future social crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ethnological Forum / Etnoloska Tribina is the property of Etnoloska Tribina / Ethnological Forum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Urban agriculture is increasingly recognized as an important sustainable pathway for climate change adaptation and mitigation, for building more resilient cities, and for citizens' health. Urban agriculture systems appear in many forms -- both commercial and non-commercial. The value of the services derived from urban agriculture, e.g., enhanced food security, air quality, water regulation, and high level of biodiversity, is often difficult to quantify to inform policymakers and the general public in their decision making. We perform a contingent valuation survey of four different types of urban agriculture Where the citizens of Oslo are asked about their attitudes and willingness to pay non-commercial (urban community gardens and urban gardens for work training, education and kindergartens) and for commercial (i.e. aquaponics and vertical production) forms of urban agriculture. Results show that the citizens of Oslo are willing to increase their tax payments to contribute to further development of urban farming in Oslo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifteen soil and 45 vegetable samples from Detroit community gardens were analyzed for potential antimicrobial resistance contamination. Soil bacteria were isolated and tested by antimicrobial susceptibility profiling, horizontal gene transfer, and whole-genome sequencing. High-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing analysis was conducted on collected soil samples to determine the total bacterial composition. Of 226 bacterial isolates recovered, 54 were from soil and 172 from vegetables. A high minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was defined as the MIC greater than or equal to the resistance breakpoint of Escherichia coli for Gram-negative bacteria or Staphylococcus aureus for Gram-positive bacteria. The high MIC was observed in 63.4 and 69.8% of Gram-negative isolates from soil and vegetables, respectively, against amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, as well as 97.5 and 82.7% against ampicillin, 97.6 and 90.7% against ceftriaxone, 85.4 and 81.3% against cefoxitin, 65.8 and 70.5% against chloramphenicol, and 80.5 and 59.7% against ciprofloxacin. All Gram-positive bacteria showed a high MIC to gentamicin, kanamycin, and penicillin. Forty of 57 isolates carrying tetM (70.2%) successfully transferred tetracycline resistance to a susceptible recipient via conjugation. Whole-genome sequencing analysis identified a wide array of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs), including those encoding AdeIJK, Mex, and SmeDEF efflux pumps, suggesting a high potential of the isolates to become antimicrobial resistant, despite some inconsistency between the gene profile and the resistance phenotype. In conclusion, soil bacteria in urban community gardens can serve as a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance with the potential to transfer to clinically important pathogens, resulting in food safety and public health concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demise of public space in cities across the Global North has received considerable scrutiny from urban scholars in recent years, with accounts of the loss, privatisation and increased regulation of public space prevalent within the academic literature. This paper seeks to complicate these dominant narratives of public space transformation by exploring the complexities of existing public spaces and the emergence of new spaces of publicness in the city. It uses a case study of community gardening in mundane and everyday neighbourhood spaces to provide a more nuanced and progressive reading of the relations between publicness and space in the city. Drawing on empirical materials from recent research on community gardening projects in 15 cities in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA, the paper highlights how community gardening is creating new environments of publicness across public, private and in-between spaces that complicate both the end of public space discourse and conventional understandings of public space within urban studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research explores the historical continuities and changes in urban gardening through a case study of a small post-industrial city in the Midwest. We argue that although the recent interest in urban gardening is unique in some ways, it follows previous garden initiatives in many of its approaches and goals. While urban agriculture was most visible during political and economic crises in the early and mid-20th century, it has been a constant presence in the city even as the location of gardens and farms have shifted. Settlement house gardens, Victory Gardens, and community gardens today all share a common logic that promotes solutions to poverty by expanding access to healthy foods and green spaces while seeking to improve individual behaviors in marginalized neighborhoods. At the same time, local food movements have always been shaped by understandings of community and citizenship at scales beyond the local. While gardening programs have often failed to acknowledge the deep-seated factors that produce food insecurity, we suggest that present-day local food initiatives offer the possibility of a more inclusive food system based on embodied relationships with agriculture and place, both in the city and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Home-gardening is a widespread practice in Croatia and Czechia. • Main motivation for FSP is fresh and healthy food and not the financial reasons. • FSP brings significant, if usually unintended, environmental benefits. • Framing FSP on Eastern European context broadens the conceptual scope of responses to environmental crisis. European accounts of home gardening or food self-provisioning (FSP) typically frame these practices as primarily economically motivated and need related, and community gardening or urban agriculture as ethical sustainability strategies. Drawing on primary research on FSP in two East European countries, this paper combines analysis of socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics of food self-provisioners with analysis of their motivations. There is strong evidence that while economic reasons are present FSP is primarily motivated, even in comparatively less affluent East European societies, by the desire to obtain fresh and healthy food and engage in a pleasurable activity. Based on our findings, we thus propose that a more appropriate framing for FSP in the European East and West alike is characterised by autonomy and community care. This would provide for a reengagement with the epistemology of sustainability-compliant behaviours and attitudes beyond the joy vs. limitations dichotomy. Given the performativity of social scientific research, rooting the framing on knowledge from East European societies, where FSP is widespread in all social groups, including the affluent middle class, is important for lending credence to alternative visions and practices that can enhance the sustainability of overdeveloped societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil quality and fertility deterioration due to the development in urban areas can cause a significant limitation on the yield and sustainability of crops. A field study was done to investigate the effects of biochar and compost application on soil properties and growth performance of Amaranthus sp. grown at urban community garden in Taman Seri Sentosa, Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur. The study was organized using the randomized complete block design (RCBD) with five treatments and four replicates. The treatments are T1 (soil only as a control), T2 (soil+fertilizer), T3 (soil+ fertilizer +biochar), T4 (soil+ fertilizer+compost) and T5 (soil+fertilizer+biochar+compost). In this study, the treatment which consists of both biochar and compost gave the significant increases and highest reading of plant height (50.40 cm), number of leaves (18), plant leaves width (91.61 mm), chlorophyll content (34.3 μmol/m2), plant fresh weight (1.51 kg), dry weight (11.42 g), soil organic matter (10.25%) and soil organic carbon content (5.95%) compared to other treatments. As a conclusion, the combination biochar and compost give the best effects in enhancing the soil properties and growth performance of Amaranthus sp. grown at urban community garden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ESTOA: Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca is the property of ESTOA Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Scientiarum Polonorum. Formatio Circumiectus is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rolniczego im. Hugona Kollataja w Krakowie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents an agent-based model that explores the conditions for ongoing participation in community gardening projects. We test the effects of Ostrom's well-known Design Principles for collective action and use an extensive database collected in 123 cases in Germany and two case studies in the Netherlands to validate it. The model uses the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and integrates decision mechanisms derived from the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). This allows the analysis of volunteer participation in urban community gardens over time, based on the garden's institutions (Design Principles) and the volunteer's intention to join gardening. This intention is influenced by the volunteer's expectations and past experiences in the garden (TRA). We find that not all Design Principles lead to higher levels of participation but rather, participation depends on specific combinations of the Design Principles. We highlight the need to update the assumption about sanctioning in such systems: sanctioning is not always beneficial, and may be counter-productive in certain contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alongside kindred civic-driven and place-based urban greening initiatives, studies document an upsurge over the last decade in urban gardening and alternative food initiatives across a range of Euro-American settings. Meanwhile, historical and cultural inquiries into urban design, planning and politics suggest that the place and role of 'nature' in the city is now undergoing significant shifts. In this article, we deploy a case study of a civic-driven permaculture garden in Copenhagen in order to suggest a novel analytical grid of the imaginative and material domain of public aesthetic norms shaping current-day tensions over interventions in and valuations of the fabric of multiform green-spaces in the city. Reading across existing literatures, we model this domain along two structuring axes – of 'orderliness' versus 'wildness' and 'pastoral nature' versus city-nature 'imbrication' – and illustrate the usefulness of the resulting grid for making sense of internal debates and external criticisms in the Copenhagen permaculture gardening case. By assisting us in explaining how and why this garden struggled to carve out a legitimate space in a city otherwise committed to urban nature, we argue that attention to variable urban-green aesthetic commitments helps recast questions of urban sustainability politics in important ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The garden alley is popular, poetic, and full of natural and literary feelings that has a prominent place in poetry and literature. Alleyways in traditional architecture and urban gardens are also considered authentic patterns, beautiful, artistic, poetic, and relaxing spaces. The pattern in the present era has been replaced by non-western and western-style urban architecture and decay. In traditional Iranian cities, most residential contexts had gardens that transformed residential textures into neighborhood gardens or a combination of buildings and green areas. Methodology: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the garden alley as a model of urban design in Iranian cities. In this regard, the most important question of this article is: What is the position of garden alleys in the design of local and urban contexts in Iran? The research method used in this research is historical-analytical with a logical reasoning approach based on documentary study methods. Library and case studies have also been carried out. Discussion: Evaluation criteria can be considered in the mentioned design with slight changes. These changes are limited to adding a literary component and separating function into two components: land use and activity, and access and movement. Therefore, the dimensions of the present research are historical, literary, spatial-physical, semantic, environmental, objective, mental, access, movement, use, activity, cultural, social, and spiritual-psychological perspectives. The resulting conceptual framework can be used to evaluate case studies from the perspective of users and clients. According to the results of the analysis of questionnaires and research surveys, the Sardrood Garden Alley had a high average score in terms of environmental quality. The average score of the respondents on the human and environmental qualities of the garden alleys was between 90% and 100%. This evaluation indicated the high human and environmental qualities in the garden alley pattern and showed the satisfaction of users in various human and environmental dimensions. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated that garden alleys in the traditional Iranian architecture and urban design have been integral parts of the urban texture which are still considered as a part of many rural and urban contexts. The artificial texture of the villages and towns has been gradually established through garden alleys to the texture of the gardens and fields. With a humane, literary, and nature-based approach to the spaces of villages, towns, and cities, we can help to institutionalize the pattern of garden alleys through planning and designing strategies. These include: preserving the natural heritage of the gardens and the alleyways of the garden, observing privacy and ownership, streamlining the gardens with a catering garden pattern, urban design of the alleyways, creativity in the design of the garden alley, and anticipating the garden alley in urban recreation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although urban gardens are often celebrated for supporting bee abundance and diversity within cities, little is known about how garden management and urbanization levels influence bee foraging behavior and ability to utilize resources within these landscapes. Specifically, the preferences and diet breadth of bees may depend critically on local and landscape conditions in human-managed, urban environments. To understand how foraging patterns and pollen preferences are influenced by urban landscape composition, we first examined if bees visit plants grown within urban gardens and second assessed the relationships between local floral resources, urban land cover, and pollen collection patterns, focusing on 20 community gardens across 125 km of the California central coast. We targeted a well-studied, essential native pollinator in this ecoregion, Bombus vosnesenskii, and analyzed pollen on the bodies of individuals collected in our study gardens to compare their contents to local and landscape garden composition factors. We found that greater landscape-level urban cover and greater plant species richness in the garden both drove higher within-garden pollen collection. We also found that B. vosnesenskii preferred ornamental plant species over highly available crop species in the gardens. Our study indicates that landscapes that support plant diversity, including both ornamental plants and sustenance-oriented food crops, promote greater within-garden pollen collection patterns, with likely benefits for urban garden food production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the contribution of urban community gardens to food availability in Emfuleni Local Municipality, Gauteng Province of South Africa. The objectives were to determine the ability of the urban community gardens to produce vegetables throughout the year and to assess the contribution of these gardens to food availability. It was conducted in six (6) townships of Emfuleni Local Municipality by means of semi-structured survey questionnaires. A sample of 254 participants was randomly drawn from 418 urban farmers. A descriptive analysis technique and one-way ANOVA formed part of the data analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. The study found that community gardens contributed to food availability of the respondents by providing fresh vegetables to most urban farmers and their household members throughout the year. Furthermore, it was discovered that there is no relationship between vegetable availability and gender of the respondents. Based on the results, the study recommended that farmers in urban community gardens should focus on increasing and sustaining their production to ensure that they have adequate vegetables to feed their families throughout the year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions for collective action (ICAs), comprising individuals that informally organize to manage collective resources, have gained recognition as a significant means of informal governance of common resources alongside the more formal schemes of privatization and top‐down regulation. Using the case study of community gardens, this article locates ICAs within the broader phenomenon of self‐organization in complex systems, and inquires whether ICAs exhibit dynamics of social contagion and diffuse in accordance with patterns that prevail in self‐organized complex systems. Applying quantitative methods derived from the field of complexity, we measure the temporal, spatial, and spatiotemporal diffusion of community gardens in the city of Jerusalem. The results suggest that the spread of community gardens in the urban space displays patterns of self‐organization and social contagion. More generally, these findings suggest that ICAs may scale from the micro to the macro level in a bottom‐up, self‐expanding manner, while maintaining the advantages of local, commons‐based arrangements. This perspective carries significant policy implications, and highlights the potential use of ICAs as a means for the governance of public resources, not only on a local, micro scale but also on a more global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community gardens provide food, health, and sustainability benefits to surrounding communities. Research demonstrates that low-income or ethnic minority communities develop gardens to resist divestment and provide access to healthy food, whereas white or highly educated communities develop gardens to address local sustainability concerns. Missing from this discussion is a comprehensive picture of the relationship between neighborhood composition and community garden locations. Using GrowNYC and GreenThumb's 2014 survey of New York City community gardens, this study employs negative binomial and spatial regression methods to examine this relationship. Findings reveal increased numbers of gardens in communities with higher aggregate concentrations of (1) black and/or Latino residents, (2) lower income residents, and (3) well-educated residents, regardless of ethnicity or income. In keeping with qualitative research on motivations for garden development, this study provides crucial quantitative metrics suggesting the diversity of neighborhoods with community gardens and supports their inclusion in urban public policy and city planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a vibrant community gardening movement in New York City since the 1970s. The movement is predominantly located in working class communities of color and has fought for decades to turn vacant land into beneficial community spaces. However, many of these communities are struggling with gentrification, which has the potential to transform access to and use of community gardens in the city and the politics around them. Drawing on separate multi-year ethnographic projects, this article compares two community gardens in food insecure communities in Queens and Brooklyn: one that is undergoing gentrification and one that is not. We analyze how race and class transformations in each community shape the trajectories of urban agriculture spaces, specifically the ideologies, agricultural practices, and daily interactions among gardeners and as well as between gardeners and nongardeners. We find significant differences in how the two sets of community gardeners conceptualize the purpose of their gardens, particularly in constructing them as green spaces, agricultural production sites, and tools for achieving food justice. We argue that these differences can be best understood at the intersection of the personal histories of individuals, the organizational settings in which the gardens are embedded, and each neighborhood's history of urban renewal and gentrification. Our findings show why some community gardens in food insecure communities adopt a food justice vision, while others do not, and how gentrification can amplify racial and class tensions within community gardens and between gardeners and nongardeners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature-based solutions directed at improving biodiversity, on both public and private land, can provide multiple benefits, but many of these benefits are not being fully realised. One reason is the normative and cognitive disconnect between people and nature, highlighting the need for new learning programs to foster better nature connections. More is known about learning in the context of community gardens than in relation to private gardens. Using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, this study explores learning among residents engaged in home gardening for biodiversity in Winnipeg, Canada. We uncovered diverse and interconnected learning processes/activities founded on formative childhood experiences. The processes/activities were non-formal and informal, and included individual, social and blended experiences. Learning outcomes were also mutually influencing and multi-levelled, comprising normative, cognitive/behavioural and relational changes. The results support an analytical framework suggesting how learning-focused initiatives can enhance biodiversity on private property and aid in delivery of nature-based solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, most of the Brazilian population is living in cities, and slums are growing with poor living conditions, in a context of enormous social-economic inequality. One of the local challenges is the poor nutrition of its inhabitants, along with the high cost of healthier food. This paper presents the results of an urban gardening project, developed through the partnership of universities, communities and public institutions at the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. It represents university research and extension projects on building community gardens, aiming at the constitution of a social-economic innovative process to increase local social cohesion, popular protagonism and food sovereignty. Each garden that is part of the Community Gardening Project is facing particular challenges in relation to its social, environmental and economic sustainability, but the initiative is proving to be a significant alternative to humanize those spaces, systemically bringing together approaches as Systemic Design, Agroecology and Food Sovereignty and Solidarity Economy, Integral Endeavours and developing cooperative and innovative actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban horticulture and community gardening have become more and more popular in the past years, however, the risk of bioaccumulation of atmospheric polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in vegetables grown in polluted areas cannot be neglected. In our study, the No. 227 OECD GUIDELINE FOR THE TESTING OF CHEMICALS: Terrestrial Plant Test: Vegetative Vigour Test was followed to assess foliar uptake of PAHs from aqueous extract of an urban aerosol. Using lettuce (Lactuca sativa) as a test organism, significant accumulation was experienced. The highest bioconcentration factors (BCFs) were experienced for naphthalene and for anthracene, pyrene and fluoranthene showed the lowest bioaccumulation potential. BCF of each PAH showed strong correlation with molecular weight. The standard protocol defined by the Guideline made it possible to assess bioaccumulation pattern under controlled laboratory conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A renaissance of community gardening is unfolding on a global urban scale. Scholars have analysed community gardening projects as empowering, contested or controlled spaces depending on the local governance networks in which, or despite of which, they emerge. Focusing on the political-economic context in which gardening activities emerge in Amsterdam, we present community gardens as places where the neoliberal localisation of the city unfolds. Based on a qualitative study of 19 community gardening projects in the city of Amsterdam, we argue that community gardening projects in Amsterdam can be seen as "controlled space" [Eizenberg, E. 2012a. "Actually Existing Commons: Three Moments of Space of Community Gardens in New York City." Antipode 44 (3): 764–782.]: a space where various institutional governance actors have a varied level of influence and control. Following [McClintock, N. 2014. "Radical, Reformist, and Garden-Variety Neoliberal: Coming to Terms with Urban Agriculture's Contradictions." Local Environment 19 (2): 147–171.] who argues that community gardens can be "radical and neoliberal at once" we unpack this notion of controlled space. We compare differently managed gardening projects and describe the varied relations between gardeners and four governance actors, namely local government, welfare organisations, green NGOs and housing associations. We show how these relations both impair and enable the civic participation of gardeners, the inclusive potential of gardens and an alternative, local food provision and distribution. Finally, we reflect on what this means for the potential of community gardening, a rising urban phenomenon, to (re)claim urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can place-keeping be considered as urban commons or occurring through the sharing of activities? If so, then specifically, how? This paper discusses long-term place- keeping of Singapore's neighbourhood green spaces as a shared practice, actively engaging citizens in shared responsibilities and collective efforts in transitioning a 'public' space to a 'common' space. We discuss community gardens as a shared urban space and examine two initiatives for neighbourhood green spaces characterized by active involvement of citizens in place-keeping: Community in Bloom (CIB) and Allotment Gardens (AG). Six case studies were examined to understand the current process of shared green space management. An integrated Policy Arrangement Approach (PAA) framework was adopted to analyse the governance arrangements and evaluate the spatial qualities of the community gardens (CIB and AG). Our analysis highlights the positive socio-economic impact of community-led green space management through effective shared place-keeping strategies. It emphasizes the need for an innovative participatory governance approach with a conscious balance between 'autonomy' and 'authority' as the key to long-term place-keeping. Localized community initiatives within a mosaic governance model with flexible partnerships between authorities and citizens would be n good starting point in facilitating shared governance of green spaces in Singapore's public residential estates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although best management practices have been recommended by government agencies and non-profit organisations to reduce community gardeners' potential exposure to soil contaminants such as lead, some gardeners do not perform these practices. Understanding gardeners' beliefs and motivations is critical for effective promotion of safer gardening practices. This study, grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), employed five focus groups to investigate Atlanta community garden leaders' perspectives concerning three gardening practices: composting, hygiene behaviours, and mulching. These general practices are also considered safe gardening practices in that they can reduce exposure to toxicants in urban gardens. Qualitative analysis identified advantages and disadvantages; supporters and non-supporters; and barriers and facilitators that might influence gardeners' opinions regarding these behaviours. Gardeners expressed that more funding, volunteers, and training are needed to promote these behaviours. Gardeners noted that mulch and compost provided advantages such as improving soil quality, but a primary barrier was concern about contamination of source materials. Focus group participants did not directly associate composting and mulching with reduction of exposure to soil contaminants. Behavioural challenges related to hygiene included concerns about decreased exposure to salubrious bacteria, inadequate access to potable water, and limited availability of gloves and wipes. These study findings characterise factors that community garden stakeholders should consider when promoting safe gardening practices and interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban gardening contributes to society in various ways such as by enhancing communities, ensuring food security, improving health, providing places for recreation as well as by raising environmental awareness. Although urban gardening initiatives have been spreading, the challenge remains to include vulnerable communities, especially in developing countries, which face manifold infrastructural, environmental and social pressures, thereby helping achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 (Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable) and foster urban inclusiveness. The study evaluated the performance of urban community gardens in order to verify their potential for implementation in the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Significant assets and drawbacks were analyzed from existing studies and categorized into social, spatial, economic and environmental factors. Additionally, qualitative interviews on societal and motivational issues were conducted with contributors to a community garden in Dresden, Germany. The results highlight the potential of urban gardening to counteract spatial pressures in informal areas by creating green spaces, improving food quality, raising environmental awareness and, in general, ensuring a higher quality of life. On the other hand, some obstacles remain to be overcome, such as soil pollution, the high probability of further contamination as well as a lack of basic infrastructure. A top-down implementation of urban gardens within slums is considered feasible if the projects are designed in partnership with the community, and a long-term adaptive management model is applied. Under these conditions, urban gardening will make a significant contribution to 'inclusive urbanism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban community gardens offer unique social and ecological benefits in cities. However, given the dynamic nature of cities and the profound effects of variable land uses on green space provisioning for people and wildlife, investigating community gardens from a landscape perspective offers valuable insight into the functions of these spaces in terms of ecosystem services and sustainable development. In this study, we use garden locations provided by stakeholder groups and fine-scale spatial data to compare community gardens across three cities: New York City, NY, Chicago, IL, and Baltimore, MD (USA). In each city, we assess the spatial distribution of gardens and compare the natural vegetation and impervious surface cover within these gardens to the surrounding neighborhood and landscape. We then compared these cities to clarify the role of community gardens in metropolitan development. Our findings demonstrate that gardens cluster in neighborhoods in New York City and Chicago, but they are more spatially distributed across the landscape in Baltimore. The distribution of Baltimore's community gardens is more likely to be contributing to a greater network of ecosystem services across a broader urban landscape. Moreover, at the garden scale, gardens in NYC and Chicago have more canopy cover and built infrastructure than the more herbaceous gardens in Baltimore. This suggests that our case study cities exhibit different garden typologies, histories, and potential for ecosystem services. This work provides critical insight into the typology in and around community gardens in different cities, which is useful in understanding the potential ecosystem services and planning trajectories of these cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in urban agriculture has increased rapidly in recent decades, but little is known about the effect of potential contaminants, such as groundwater pollution, in urban areas. Furthermore, local and timely science necessary for developing place-based solutions and management plans are lacking. We present a citizen-science-driven case study of water quality in a large urban community garden in southwestern London that was initiated in response to the concerns of members about the effect of inorganic compounds in the water supply on organic produce. The 5.6-ha community garden has been cultivated for fruit and vegetables since 1921 and hand-pumped boreholes drawing water from an underlying shallow aquifer provide the only source of irrigation. We assessed the spatial and temporal distributions of specific conductance and tryptophan-like fluorescence to explore the dynamics of inorganic and organic pollution based on water drawn from the boreholes. A trained citizen scientist made measurements with a calibrated Manta II probe over a 28-mo period from 2014 to 2016. We also surveyed >80 members of the community garden to gain insight into cultivation practices. Results indicate that the concerns about external sources of pollution were unfounded. We found little evidence of the effect of potential adjacent sources of contamination or of changes in water quality in time. Distinct trends were absent, and evidence of poorer water quality close to possible sources of urban contamination was not apparent. However, significant interborehole variations in water quality were directly associated with the storage and use of manure on the site and local geological conditions. The study demonstrates the potential of citizen science to respond to community concerns and generate new and novel information when participants are engaged, trained, and equipped over longer periods of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Community gardens can support community resilience following disasters. • They should be promoted as long-term assets before a disaster strikes. • Well-established gardens provide social support among gardeners after earthquakes. • They should consider design features that support post-disaster social interaction. • They should be managed to support community-building activities and events. Abstract The paper examines community benefits provided by an established community garden following a major earthquake and discusses possible implications for community garden planning and design in disaster-prone cities. Recent studies show that following extreme storm events community gardens can supply food, enhance social empowerment, provide safe gathering spots, and restorative practices, to remind people of normality. However, the beneficial role played by community gardens following earthquakes is less well known. To fill this gap, the study examines the role played by a community garden in Christchurch, New Zealand, following the 2010/2011 Canterbury Earthquakes. The garden's role is evaluated based on a questionnaire-based survey and in-depth interviews with gardeners, as well as on data regarding the garden use before and after the earthquakes. Findings indicate the garden helped gardeners cope with the post-quake situation. The garden served as an important place to de-stress, share experiences, and gain community support. Garden features that reportedly supported disaster recovery include facilities that encourage social interaction and bonding such as central meeting and lunch places and communal working areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 20th century, urban gardening in central and northern Europe as well as in North America has received a great deal of academic attention. However, the recent proliferation of urban gardening in other geographies, such as southern Europe in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2007–2008, remains underexplored. The economic crisis put on hold urban developments in many southern European cities, leaving idle plots of land waiting to be urbanized. The crisis also triggered radical political demands, such as those of the Indignados, as well as fuelling narratives revolving around social entrepreneurship and social innovation. Barcelona emerges as a laboratory of urban gardening initiatives in vacant lots mobilizing either radical urban demands or embedding new post-crisis rhetoric around social entrepreneurship. Through a combination of qualitative methods, including participant observation, a literature review, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and field diaries, we present a characterization and evolution of the three most prominent urban gardening initiatives in the city of Barcelona (including 54 gardens at the end of 2016): the Network of Municipal Gardens (municipally led gardens for retired people); the Network of Communitarian Gardens (social movements); and the Empty Plots Plan (social entrepreneurial urban gardening). Subsequently, we discuss the different meanings of gardening in crisis/post-crisis Barcelona as well as the urban politics that each initiative articulates. Our results show that urban gardens within the city are an expression of different and non-exclusive meanings that explicitly or implicitly, in a context of crisis and post-crisis, mobilize notions of political gardening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]