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The renaissance in urban agriculture is driven by its contributions to fostering more sustainable, healthy, and renaturalized cities. While urban gardens are usually designed to improve food security or serve social purposes, they also offer additional benefits. The aim of this research is to study the urban allotment gardens in Valladolid, Spain, highlighting their capacity to support low-income populations and their potential contribution to urban cooling. As a result of research in twelve plots across four gardens, we found that crop selection in Valladolid aligns with broader urban gardening trends in the Global North, with production adapted to limited plot space and varying significantly by season. In addition, we observed that urban allotment gardens provide more stable and cooler temperatures compared to urban gray spaces, although not as significantly as urban parks. The cooling effect was most pronounced during the summer, a season with the highest number of crops and the warmest temperatures. The study identified that greater crop cover above soil had a more significant cooling effect at the plot level. Surprisingly, crop abundance and crop diversity showed a weak correlation with cooling benefits. As a complement, survey questionnaires conducted with gardeners revealed their awareness of climate change and its perceived direct threat to their crops, health, and city. The future concerns of gardeners regarding the availability of water for both crop growth and the development of urban allotment gardens are emphasized. The findings provide results on self-produced food, urban cooling, and the opinion of gardeners, underscoring the multifunctional contributions of urban gardens to cities. [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 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]

Urban agriculture should be promoted as long as the food produced is safe for consumption. Located in the metropolitan region of São Paulo-Brazil, Santo André has intense industrial activities and more recently an increasing stimulus to urban gardening. One of the potential risks associated to this activity is the presence of potentially toxic elements (PTEs). In this study, the concentration of PTEs (As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cu, Cr, Ni, Mo, Pb, Sb, Se, V and Zn) was evaluated by soil (n = 85) and soil amendments (n = 19) in urban gardens from this municipality. Only barium was above regulatory limits in agricultural soil ranging from 20 to 112 mg kg−1. Geochemical indexes (Igeo, Cf and Er) revealed moderate to severe pollution for As, Ba, Cr, Cu, Pb Se and Zn, especialy in Capuava petrochemical complex gardens. A multivariate statistical approach discriminated Capuava gardens from the others and correlated As, Cr and V as main factors of pollution. However, carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks were below the acceptable range for regulatory purposes of 10–6–10–4 for adults. Soil amendments were identified as a possible source of contamination for Ba, Zn and Pb which ranged from 37 to 4137 mg kg−1, 20 to 701 mg kg−1 and 0.7 to 73 mg kg−1, respectively. The results also indicated the presence of six pathogenic bacteria in these amendments. Besides that, the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance for Shigella, Enterobacter and Citrobacter isolates suggests that soil management practices improvement is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inadequacy of agricultural production due to environmental factors and injustices in accessing food as a result of increasingly profit-oriented production-distribution-consumption processes have led to the food crisis in many cities worldwide. The fragility of the current food systems in the face of all these problematic conditions calls for alternative strategies to be developed. Food commons, in this sense, emerges as a novel form of commoning that blends practical aims (sharing of land, resources, and tools) with social aspirations (fostering cooperation, self-management, and community involvement) of the urban commons to address food-related problems. In this context, this study focuses on collective food production within urban gardens while accepting urban gardening as a form of food commoning. It further explores the role of common spaces and the social dynamics of urban gardening groups for urban food production. All these are discussed through a selected case study: METU Garden (ODTÜ Bostanı). Accordingly, this research aims to relate the social structures and spatial qualities of the METU Garden to food commons theories and frameworks. Acknowledging how food commoning practices occur in community-led urban gardens such as METU Garden can contribute to developing novel, bottom-up, and inclusive design strategies to tackle food-related problems in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have recently worked to broaden the definition of urban engagement in order to better understand the multiple manifestations of this concept. Some, interested in grasping the potential transformative or demonstrative effects of everyday actions in urban settings, have examined active practices, such as gardening. Others have focused on the scale of action and have demonstrated how limited activities can have significant effects on individuals and communities. Building on the case studies of collective gardens in the significantly different urban settings of Québec City (Canada) and Madrid (Spain), we explore how the practices of urban gardening offer forms of learning that often go beyond gardening itself and expand into collective decision making and social engagement. The gardens we look at are grassroots based, have been in operation for approximately ten years and receive a form of support from city programmes. Our results show that these gardens are the sites of social processes where gardeners develop a strong identity in relation to the alternative lifestyles that they build, as well as a sense of belonging that goes beyond the boundaries of their garden and that connects them to nature. By developing their ethos of care, gardeners learn that neighbourhood-oriented actions have political implications that can help change the city. [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]

Urban gardening is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in or around urban areas. Its' most prominent feature is that it is integrated into the urban economic and ecological system, unlike rural agriculture. Such linkages include the use of urban residents as laborers, the use of urban resources (like organic waste as compost and urban wastewater for irrigation), it has direct links with urban consumers, and directly influences the urban ecology as part of the urban food system. Urban gardening may take place in locations inside cities (intra-urban) or in periurban areas. The food garden at the Cato Manor Health Centre is a food security and nutrition intervention that aims at addressing the well-being, education and management of hypertension and diabetes through the lifestyle modification of healthy eating behaviours. The urban garden at the clinic promotes food awareness and gardening skills among regular patients and visitors. By encouraging sustainable livelihoods, clinic patients who live in Cato Manor extend this knowledge to their farming practices in the rural areas. The backyard garden on the clinic property is 100 square meters in size and grows a range of vegetables and fruit, based on permaculture and agroecological principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the southern Vietnamese metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City has seen a proliferation of urban gardening, ranging from the minute home-growing of herbs and vegetables to commercial urban gardens. In this article, I argue that what underlies these phenomena is urbanites' striving to control the food they consume in light of prevalent food safety concerns in Vietnam. Based on ethnographic research, the article demonstrates that urban food growing efforts are largely related to a widespread crisis of confidence in the food system in general and in farming specifically. People are particularly concerned with agrochemical contamination of food and its long-term health effects. Meanwhile, tensions exist between negative views of "unsafe" practices of unknown farmers and the simultaneous romanticization of rural life and of food acquired through personal rural connections. In the context of growing socio-economic inequalities in the late socialist country, the research also examines how urban gardening as an individualized and middle-class activity renders visible class differences in access to locally produced, "safe" food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contradictions of commoning practices have recently gained increasing attention in critical research. As such, research has shown that collective practices of gardening in common produce contradictory effects not necessarily in line with progressive ideas of the common. Instead of a general dismissal of commoning due to its documented contradictions, I suggest looking beyond the naïve wishing away of contradictions by way of deploying Marxist dialectics as a research perspective from which to explicate and understand underlying processes. Rather than undermining the common's potential as a post-capitalist alternative, this article uses contradictions as an analytical lens through which the meaning of six contradictions of urban garden commons identified in the academic literature is explored. This article concludes that a conceptual focus on contradictions allows for a reflexive and critical research practice revealing the complexity of dialectical relations through which the practice of gardening propels changes but also the reproduction of existing relations. [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]

A promise of urban gardening (UG) is allowing individuals to shape and engage with the built environment, bringing people together in public space. Municipalities may promote UG in public space for a wide variety of reasons such as enabling integration, reducing crime, or promoting area attractivity. While there is a general sense that UG can contribute to inclusive public space in these efforts, previous research provides ambiguous findings. UG in public space requires balancing inclusive and exclusive practices to create common values, as a select group of engaged members inherently shape space in their interest. UG initiatives vary considerably with respect to their aims, organisational forms, and spatial contexts – affecting inclusion in public space in different manners. The article seeks to unpack how urban settings, organisational forms, and municipal enabling affect UG practices towards inclusion in public space. To do so, the article draws on the theory of urban commons and intertwines it with research on inclusion in public space. This provides an understanding of multi-faceted UG governance and its exclusionary aspects. A framework is not only developed and applied to critically, but also constructively, to review how municipalities enable UG. A comparative analysis of UG initiatives in three Northern European municipalities explores both municipal enabling and the co-production of inclusive public space. The research abductively refines the framework for understanding the co-production of inclusive public space in UG. We argue that the findings and resulting framework have implications for research and for municipal enabling of UG towards inclusive public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Liño: Revista Annual de Historia del Arte is the property of Universidad de Oviedo, Servicio de Publicaciones 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.)

Sustainable urban farming is a strategy to improve food availability and food access, and to support food security for the urban population in Malaysia. However, the development of these activities has been affected by several constraints. This article aims to identify the challenges faced by urban farmers in Kuala Lumpur. The challenges of practicing urban gardening were categorised into five groups (technical, resource-related, economic, social and environmental factors). Data were collected via a questionnaire survey distributed to 106 urban farming practitioners from 17 urban gardens in Kuala Lumpur and were analysed using descriptive analysis by tabulating the frequency and percentage. The result showed that highly fluctuating weather, problems with access to available land and financial problems were the main challenges faced by urban farmers in Kuala Lumpur. Furthermore, difficulty in access to a financial institution, lack of commitment and the increased number of pests were also the problems faced by the urban garden. Availability of technical factors is the least issue in this study. Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between the challenges of urban gardens and socio-demographics. The result showed that there was a weak correlation between technical factors of educational level (r = 0.225) and race (r = 0.210), respectively, as well as between race and social factor (r = 0.201), while there was a moderate correlation between age and environment factor (r = −0.410). There is a need for further work, and comprehensive research should be conducted to capture what actions can be taken to create a policy-making space for urban farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers the first insight into the profile (origin, age, family background) of foreign urban gardeners in Lombard municipalities. The cultivation of urban gardens encourages socialisation among gardeners and the rest of the population, and also consolidates social capital at local level. Studies confirming these benefits proliferate in the current literature. However, they estimate these effects with reference to the entire population of gardeners, without specifically considering the consequences for particular social sub-groups. This scarce knowledge prevents a better understanding of the characteristics of these sub-groups and the individual benefits that can be derived from the cultivation. This is especially true for the subset of foreign gardeners, which is currently understudied. This group consists of foreign-born people who live in Italian municipalities for family or work reasons and cultivate an urban garden at present. Since their cultivation promotes socialisation, urban gardens could play a decisive role for accelerating the integration of this group into their local communities and therefore reduce the risk of social isolation and marginalisation. The description of the profile of foreign gardeners is proposed for Lombardy since here the foreign resident population is continuously growing at regional level. Currently, foreign-born residents represent about 12 per cent of the entire population (the highest percentage in Italy). Although the Lombard regional government has legally recognised the importance of urban gardens, there is no database of cultivated plots, or detailed information related to the number of gardens cultivated by foreign-born residents, at a regional level. As a result of the elaboration of answers to a questionnaire, many Lombard municipalities have experimented with urban gardening projects in their territories. The municipalities in question are primarily located around provincial capitals and in the area between Milan and Bergamo. Some of these municipalities have allocated urban gardens to foreign citizens; these municipalities are located across the region, but particularly in the provincial capitals and in the municipalities closest to these urban centres. Foreign gardeners come predominantly from North Africa and Eastern Europe. Most of them are over 40 years old, married and have children. Only in two municipalities are the foreign gardeners more likely to be single or without children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous youth are key partners in improving our understanding of holistic health and identifying solutions to address health-related issues. The Urban Gardens Project was a community-based research partnership involving Indigenous youth co-researchers, Brandon University, Indigenous Knowledge Users, Elders, and Indigenous organizations in Winnipeg and Brandon, Manitoba. Using the Medicine Wheel as an analytic framework, the study identified key indicators of spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing that Indigenous youth attributed to gardening. Findings illuminate the need for policies to foster Indigenous youth engagement, leadership, and urban gardening programs that advance Indigenous cultural practices to contribute to Indigenous health and wellbeing. The research was funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The landscape is driven by innovative design, adhering to the concept of "poetic residence, inheritance, and innovation," which has long served China's urban and rural development and the construction of ecological civilization and provided high-quality planning and design services for governments at all levels throughout the country; we construct a particle swarm optimization (PSO) landscape pattern spatial optimization model and solution algorithm to optimize the spatial layout of the landscape for economic development, ecological protection, and integrated scenarios in a city in southwest China. The results show that the PSO-based landscape pattern spatial optimization model and algorithm can use particle position to simulate landscape distribution for spatial pattern optimization. In the development of landscape pattern optimization methods, the landscape pattern optimization model with landscape simulation evolution as the core has shown its advantages. In the target year, the dominant landscape of economic development scenario is urban and orchards, and the landscape pattern shows the distribution characteristics of urban, farmland in the western dam area, and orchards in the eastern mountainous area; the dominant landscape of ecological protection scenario is forest, urban, and rural residential and industrial mining; and the landscape pattern shows the distribution characteristics of urban and rural residential and industrial mining, orchards, farmland in the western dam area, and forest in the eastern mountainous area. The landscape pattern shows that the western dam area is dominated by urban and rural residential and industrial, while the eastern mountainous area is dominated by forests and orchards. The integrated scenario has the highest potential for the future, and its economic, ecological, and comprehensive benefits can be optimized, which is the best spatial layout of the landscape pattern in the study area in the target year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.)

The nature and impacts of living in urban settings are gaining their saliences in developed and developing countries alike, particularly during the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the crisis, the wellbeing of urban society became intertwined with a so-called "new lifestyle", which involved quarantine and working in a home environment. Facing such challenges, urban gardening is deemed as an alternative intervention to enhance residents' wellbeing and the environmental sustainability of urban areas, including Indonesian cities. A preliminary study was conducted to monitor the wellbeing of urban gardening practitioners, as well as investigate the motivation and any association between gardening and wellbeing with the COVID-19 pandemic situation by analysing data from Indonesian metropolitan areas. The study utilized instruments of "satisfaction with life scale (SWLS)" and "scale of positive and negative experience (SPANE)" to investigate the subjective wellbeing of 67 respondents. Amongst others, we identified that urban gardening practitioners tend to be in positive moods and have better overall wellbeing; 52.24% of the respondents were highly satisfied with their life. Furthermore, we observed a variety of motivations to start gardening, with hobby and utilization of free space as prominent reasons, followed by other motivations such as environmental benefit and aesthetic. Integrating the environmental benefits of urban gardening and the implications for an individual's wellbeing can be reflected for sustainable urban development and policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The partial lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia pushed people to work from and spend more time at home. During this unprecedented time, many people pursued new hobbies in gardening, which proved to enhance physical and mental health. With anxieties regarding food insecurity, food gardens became a new urban trend. With a relatively tiny space available, it is possible to make an urban food garden in the front yard of a house using various cultivation techniques to maximize space. However, the implementation of food gardens in urban houses is quite challenging due to limited space. Then, we reflect on the practical process and personal benefits gained from developing a tiny food garden at home. The tiny food garden could produce a variety of vegetables and herbs, such as the spinach family, lettuce, Asian greens, the tomato family, eggplants, the basil family, mint, rosemary, moringas, and butter y-pea flowers. It may support a household with few amounts of fresh emergency food in the worst scenario during the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides, developing a tiny food garden at home may also provide co-benefits such as enhanced subjective well-being, increased appreciation of food and the environment, motivating others to start gardening at home, and great personal satisfactions of consuming home-grown food. With all these socio-ecological co-benefits, home food garden must be integrated as a strategy to achieve urban sustainability and increase household food resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allotment gardens (AGs) are widely used in metropolitan areas around the world to offer agricultural opportunities to urban residents. However, there are not enough individual plots for residents to rent for urban gardening, and research on AGs from a city-wide perspective is ongoing. In addition, AGs have a long history in Tokyo, yet few international studies on the current situation of AGs have addressed Asian cities. Thus, this study intends to analyze the provision of AGs and its influencing factors in Tokyo. Using ArcGIS combined the 472-points dataset created by geo-coordinate mapping with urban GIS data to reveal spatial characteristics in four dimensions. Results demonstrate that most AGs are in the urbanization promotion area; most municipalities have AGs; AGs are concentrated within 20 to 30 km from the center of Tokyo; the AGs' clusters are located at the municipal boundaries. We conducted multiple regressions to determine the influencing factors at the municipal level, with the provision that AGs are related to population density, land price, and the ratio of productive green space. The policy implication of this study is that policymakers need to consider the siting strategy of AGs based on spatial characteristics of AGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nesting habits of many Australian native bees are poorly known, with observations of nests being few and far in between. Here, I report three independent nesting aggregations of a native colletid bee Leioproctus (Leioproctus) plumosus, accompanied by videos of its nesting behaviour and photographs of its nesting substrate. These discoveries were made possible through the citizen science group 'Bees in the burbs'. Despite extensive surveys in the region, the only nesting occurrences of L. plumosus have been found in domestic gardens, all in highly urbanised areas. With this species more frequently encountered in residential gardens, this suggests that despite evidence of ground‐nesting bees being relatively disadvantaged by urban development due to replacement of bare ground with impervious surfaces, this species is able to still use residential areas for nesting. I propose potential explanations for this phenomenon, which includes new observations of commonly foraging on Callistemon – a popular tree in gardens and on nature strips. That this native bee's nests appear to be associated with residential gardens provides both opportunities to engage citizen scientists in documenting and preserving native bee populations, but also indicates the threat ongoing urban development may pose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil trace metal concentrations (e.g., cadmium, copper, lead, zinc) in vegetable gardens have often been observed as exceeding the geochemical background levels. These metals are a threat both to soil and plant functioning and to human health through consumption of contaminated vegetables. We used a mass balance-based model to predict the four metal (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn) concentrations in soils after a century's cultivation for 104 urban vegetable gardens, located in three French metropolises, Nancy, Nantes, and Marseille, based on a survey of gardening practices. If current gardening practices are maintained, an increase in soil Cd (35% on average), Cu (183%), and Zn (27%) contents should occur after a century. Soil Pb concentration should not vary consistently. Organic amendments are the major source of Cd, Pb, and Zn, followed by chemical fertilizer while fungicide application is the major source of Cu. Cessation of chemical fertilizer use would only slightly reduce the accumulation of the four metals. The solubility of the four metals would decrease significantly after a century, when pH increases by one unit. A liming practice of acidic soils should therefore be a feasible way to prevent any increase in the metal mobility and bioavailability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the effect of urban agricultural garden landscape planning and design, this paper combines the agricultural Internet of Things technology to construct a smart garden planning and design system. Moreover, this paper selects the LEACH protocol that can support monitoring for a long time according to actual application needs, introduces the latest swarm intelligence optimization algorithm, the gray wolf algorithm, to optimize some of the problems in the LEACH protocol, and conducts simulation experiments on the improved algorithm. The simulation experiment results show that the improved algorithm has obvious advantages in cluster head selection, data transmission within the cluster, and route maintenance. After constructing a smart garden planning system based on the agricultural Internet of Things, the effect of the agricultural Internet of Things data processing in this paper is evaluated. Finally, this paper constructs a garden simulation system and analyzes the performance of the system. The results verify that the agricultural Internet of Things has a good effect in the planning and design of smart gardens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The depletion of natural resources, the increase in environmental problems and land use - the advancing urbanization brings with it a series of challenges that must be solved by sustainable and innovative approaches. In this context, it is particularly important to make use of existing potential in spatial and environmental planning, in order to guarantee sustainable and socially responsible urban development in the future. In particular, the revitalization of brownfields as Green Innovation Areas offers potential for the sustainable use of former industrial sites and for strengthening bio-economic management. Urban gardening is to be understood as a form for the use of inner-city brownfields as Green Innovation Areas, which can significantly contribute to a sustainable urban development. The urban gardening project Kölner Neuland serves as an example to show how a part of a 44,000 m² industrial brownfield in Cologne's Bayenthal district was revitalized by an urban garden. First, there will be an overview of the basic framework conditions based on the evaluation of existing technical literature. Subsequently, the topic of urban gardening will be treated as a form of Green Innovation Areas. In this context, it is also explained how urban gardening can promote a more sustainable and socially just urban development. In order to understand and evaluate the background of the urban gardening project Kölner Neuland, a detailed analysis of the project is required. For this reason, the historical course, financial aspects, current marketing measures as well as goals and visions of Kölner Neuland are explained after an overall view of the city. On the basis of the gained and evaluated insights of an expert interview, the urban gardening project Kölner Neuland will be examined for its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It was found that the urban garden Kölner Neuland is to be evaluated quite positively however, some aspects show the need for action. As a result of this work, recommendations for the future development of the urban gardening project Kölner Neuland are formulated. A distinction can be made between recommendations for action in the areas of financing, public perception, and control. In addition, the central conditions for a successful revitalization of inner-city brownfields through urban gardening are defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista AUS is the property of Revista AUS 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.)

A field experiment was conducted on the Andalusian coast (Granada, Southern Spain) to study the time course of nutrient release into the soil after the addition of bagged pruning waste from subtropical orchard trees (avocado, cherimoya, and mango) and urban garden waste over three two-year periods. N, P, and K concentrations were greater in the garden waste, whilst avocado and cherimoya pruning waste registered the highest values for Mg. In general, micronutrient contents were low in all waste, especially Cu. Macronutrient release followed a three-phase dynamic: fast initial release, intermediate stabilization, and final increase. Garden waste showed a similar time course in all three trees and released greater concentrations of K and P. The annual decomposition rate factor k was negative for N and Ca in the avocado tree, indicating strong biological activity in this plot. Avocado, cherimoya, and garden waste showed a good microbial degradation, improving soil quality by increasing carbon and nitrogen contents as well as soil microbial activity. As for the mango tree, its special microclimatic conditions appeared to favor waste photodegradation, thus eliminating nutrients that were not incorporated into the soil. Soil enzymatic activities increased in the avocado and cherimoya trees with the addition of all waste. In the mango tree, only an increase in urease was detected after the addition of garden waste. Our results suggest that the time course of organic waste in different subtropical trees grown on similar soils is significantly conditioned by the microclimatic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planned after the City Beautiful Movement and Garden City Movement, Manila City and Quezon City, now among Metro Manila's 16 cities, did not result in the desired outcomes of their planners. The history of unfulfilled visions that began with Burnham's 1905 Plan for Manila repeated in similar fashion in Quezon City in its 1949 Frost-Arellano Plan. How do Metro Manila's public green spaces, as remnants of these plans, sustained specific visions for meeting human needs? To find answers, we focused on Rizal Park and the University of the Philippines (UP) Academic Oval – two public green spaces that remained from the Burnham and Frost-Arellano plans. Contemporary uses of these spaces suggest that the intermingling of the upper and lower classes as envisioned in these plans is limited; nonetheless, they represent endeavours by fairly diverse groups to actively satisfy human needs within and beyond how these spaces were initially designed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing native plants in urban gardens is often promoted as a possible means of increasing lepidopteran populations. However, the efficacy of such efforts has not been well studied. Lepidopterans vary widely in their ability to survive in cities, and the few previous studies of caterpillar abundance or biomass across an urban-rural gradient have yielded mixed results. We placed clay caterpillar models in native plant gardens to assess whether the attack rate on these models varied with degree of urbanization (percent impervious surface within 1 km radius of each garden), and whether responses differed across predator taxa. We also examined how garden characteristics (plant biovolume density, plant species richness) affected probability of attack. Overall, attack rates on these models decreased with increasing impervious surface, although predator taxa varied in their sometimes complex responses. For parasitoid wasps, which accounted for 47% of all attacks, increasing biovolume density increased attack probability at impervious surface levels below 35%, but decreased the probability of attack at higher levels of impervious surface. In contrast, probabilities of attack by both predatory wasps and vertebrates decreased with increasing percent impervious surface, but did not vary with impervious surface for ants and spiders. Predation on caterpillars in urban gardens may be lower than in rural ones; however, this potential increase in survival may be a result of declines in some predator taxa, such as predatory wasps and insectivorous birds. More studies across an urban gradient are needed to measure factors other than predation that influence caterpillar survival in gardens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Vegetable gardens are increasingly common in urban areas and can provide numerous societal benefits; however, contamination with potential toxic elements (PTEs) due to urbanization and industrialization is cause for concern. The present study aimed to assess the source of contamination and pollution levels in urban garden soils, as well as the health risks for adults and children consuming vegetables grown in such environments. Various types of vegetable samples and their corresponding soils from 26 community gardens were collected throughout Chengdu City in southwestern China. The results showed that leafy vegetables, particularly lettuce leaves and Chinese cabbage, had relatively higher levels of Cd (0.04 mg/kg FW) and Pb (0.05 mg/kg FW), while higher levels of As (0.07 mg/kg FW), Cr (0.07 mg/kg FW), and Hg (0.003 mg/kg FW) were found in amaranths, tomatoes, and Houttuynia cordatas, respectively. The pollution indices revealed that the vegetable purplish soils were relatively more polluted by Cd and As, and the concentrations of these metals in vegetables were correlated with their concentrations in the soils. Principal component analysis grouped the PTEs in two dimensions that cumulatively explained 62.3% of their variation, and hierarchical clustering identified two distinct clusters indicating that Cr originated from a unique source. The health risk assessment revealed that exposure to As and Cd induced the greatest non-carcinogenic risk, whereas Cr was most likely to cause cancer risks. Furthermore, contaminated vegetable consumption was riskier for children than adults. The critical factors contributing to PTE contamination in vegetable gardens were determined to be vegetable species, total soil element content, soil pH, and soil organic matter content. Overall, Cr and As pollution present the greatest concern, and community health care services must enact more effective regulatory and preventative measures for urban gardens in terms of PTEs. [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]

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]

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]

• 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]

Many public issues require collaboration between governments, private actors, NGOs, civic organizations, and individual organizations. Initiating such a collaboration is challenging, but sustaining such a partnership can be even more difficult. This paper aims to explore what types of collaborative governance structures (CGSs) are found in urban gardens that have continued to exist over the years and that have been discontinued. In order to do this, we analysed 14 urban gardens in the Netherlands as striking examples of CGSs. By applying Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (FsQCA), we were able to unravel plausible explanations for gardens that (did not) stand the test of time. The analysis shows that financial independence, strong institutionalization, and having a small core group of volunteers is the most important configuration for the durability of an urban garden. Even though some gardens were meant to be temporary, this structure made them durable. Two urban gardens – envisioned to be temporal – did not develop an institutional design or financial independence, which led to their discontinuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Cycas forms one of the oldest plant groups. Cycas are utilized as ornamental plants in urban gardens, so they are found in different cities’ landscapes. At present, Cycas are affected by serious infestations of Aulacaspis yasumatsui (cycad aulacaspis scale; CAS) that eventually lead to the plant’s death. Aulacaspis yasumatsui is native to Thailand and has spread in all continents as an invasive species. To determine the distribution of Aulacaspis yasumatsui in Panama, we sampled 68 sites in 24 municipalities in nine of ten provinces of the Republic of Panama. Our results suggest that Aulacaspis yasumatsui is spread in the low territories of the country; however, we did not observe CAS-infested cycads in the highlands of Panama (> 700 m). Besides the economic loss caused by the death of plants whose price in Panama ranges from tens to hundreds of dollars, Cycas serve as a food supplier to birds and bats in the trophic food web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the promotion of eco-efficiency from a novel perspective by analyzing whether a city's environmental image contributes to its eco-efficiency. Specifically, we examine the causal effect of the country-level garden city image (CGCI) program on eco-efficiency by using a data set of Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2016. We estimate the effects of this program by combining propensity score matching with the difference-in-differences method. Results show the program significantly increases a city's eco-efficiency by expanding its urban green coverage, optimizing its industrial structure, and attracting talented inhabitants. The CGCI certification effects are heterogeneous. Specifically, while its effects in the western regions are positive, its effects in eastern developed cities are insignificant. These results generally point toward the effectiveness and efficiency of the CGCI program in increasing eco-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent declines in bee populations, along with increasing demand for pollination services in urban, agricultural, and natural environments, have led to strategies to attract wild bees to these areas. One of these strategies is installing artificial nests adjacent to urban gardens and agricultural farms. Bee hotels and nest boxes are among the artificial nests used by gardeners and farmers to attract pollinators. In this paper, we reviewed 50 studies that reported the efficiency of nest boxes and bee hotels in attracting bees. We considered the maximum occupation rate (percentage) as the main index to evaluate the efficiency of artificial nests. Results: The maximum occupation rate of bee hotels was higher in farms (averaged 44.1%) than in forests (averaged 30.3%) and urban (averaged 38.3%) environments. In the case of nest boxes, most studies reported efficiencies of less than 20%, with an occupation rate of 16% and 5.5% on average in forest and urban environments respectively. However, our meta-analysis results showed that there was no significant relationship between the occupation rate of the nests and their installation place. Regression analysis also showed that the structural features of bee hotels (length and diameter) and nest boxes (volume and entrance size) did not affect their efficiency in attracting bees. Conclusion: Our data showed that the strategy of installing artificial nests to attract pollinators is successful only concerning bee hotels, and the use of nest boxes has not been very successful. [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]

Urban agriculture can be used to improve green infrastructure and social well-being and as a tool for the sustainable regeneration of urban environments. Furthermore, urban agriculture, including urban gardening, has emerged as a means to help improve food insecurity and tackle climate change. This paper focuses on the social urban garden located in the Ponticelli neighbourood on the eastern outskirts of Naples, which has around 70,000 inhabitants. This area originally had an agricultural economy but has now undergone uncontrolled building expansion and lacks an adequate supply of services for the community. The area also suffers from significant social and cultural problems, including high unemployment, school dropout rates and crime rates, which touch a large part of the population. The urban garden of Ponticelli represents an example of how social cohesion can be built through the expansion of urban agriculture, while at the same time contributing to the goal of sustainability and maintaining links to the rural economy. Yet the urban agriculture initiative risks remaining isolated and being of limited benefit to regional and metropolitan efforts for environmental sustainability if it is not framed within an overall metropolitan strategy for an urban agriculture programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, home gardens have been documented as an important supplemental source contributing to food and nutritional security and livelihoods. Terrace garden is usually established on the rooftop of a building. Besides the decorative benefit, roof plantings may provide food, temperature control, hydrological benefits, architectural enhancement, habitats or corridors for wildlife, recreational opportunities, and in large scale it may even have ecological benefits. Green roof tops with living vegetation provide green spaces, mitigation urban heat island, energy conservation, improving the air quality and increases biodiversity. Terrace gardens give pleasure to city dwellers and provide an opportunity for enhancing creativity as well psychological benefits. In addition, they change the visual appearance of the building, screening from neighbors, and conceal unwanted pipeline and unappealing scenery. One such terrace garden was established in terrace portion of a house located in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu. Three different foliar treatments viz., Control (T1), Panchagavya @ 3% (T2) and 19:19:19 @ 1.5% (T3) were given to observe the growth and yield attributes of the Tomato plants. In which Panchagavya @ 3% (T2) recorded the best results in all aspects. In tomato, maximum plant height of 23.4 cm at 35DAS and 42.5 cm at 45DAS, number of leaves as 143 at 35 DAS and 218 at 45 DAS, number of lateral branches as 8 at 35 DAS and 9 at 45 DAS, stem diameter as 0.76 cm at 35 DAS and 1.2cm at 45 DAS, minimum number of days to first flowering as 42 days, minimum number of days to 50% flowering as 58 days, average fruit weight as 93.8g, total yield per plant as 0.62 kg at first picking, 0.65 kg at second picking and 0.68 kg at third picking and Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) of 1:1.8 was recorded from Panchagavya @ 3% (T2). Besides tomato other vegetable crops such as Brinjal, Bhendi, Chilli, Radish, Lab lab, Spinach and Tropical Amaranth were also grown and calculated Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR). The fixed and variable cost for terrace garden was recorded to be Rs. 1876 and Rs. 554.3 respectively. The gross return and net return obtained from terrace garden were Rs. 1545.5 and Rs. 991.2 respectively. The Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) obtained from entire terrace garden during the period of 5 months was 1:1.78. The practice of Terrace Gardening is an emerging and important business venture for the urban middle and upper classes families that assure health and profitable benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although sustainable urban development has been conceptualized in a vast array of proposals, it seems that the prioritization of economic development over environmental and social concerns limits real progress in making cities more sustainable. This paper studies whether an orientation towards self-reliance can contribute in some way to urban sustainability through examining the case of gardening in North Korean cities. The results demonstrate that even though self-reliance has long been a part of the national ideology, only its practice at the household level has resulted in significant improvements in urban sustainability. The key therein lies in family ties, the responsibility to which oblige people to actively practice a more conscious consumer behavior. Meanwhile, the economic empowerment of women, who sell a part of the harvest from their urban gardens at the local market, has not precipitated their broader involvement in either social or political activities. • Only the practice of self-reliance at the household level has supported urban sustainability in North Korea. • The economic empowerment of North Korean women has not precipitated their broader involvement in either social or political activities. • Coherent urban policy has assisted North Korea in avoiding the negative outcomes of marketization well documented in post-socialist cities of Europe. • The self-reliant city model has the potential to coexist with the free market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]