Journal articles on the topic 'Community gardeners'
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1
Ramirez-Andreotta, Monica, Abigail Tapper, Diamond Clough, Jennifer Carrera, and Shana Sandhaus. "Understanding the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations Associated with Community Gardening to Improve Environmental Public Health Prevention and Intervention." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16, no. 3 (February 11, 2019): 494. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16030494.
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Considering that community members continue to garden in and near environments impacted by pollutants known to negatively impact human health, this paper seeks to characterize the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of a gardener and elucidate their perception of soil quality and environmental responsibility, awareness of past land use, and gardening behavior. Via semi-structured interviews with community gardeners in the Boston area (N = 17), multifactorial motivations associated with gardening as well as ongoing environmental health challenges were reported. Gardeners are knowledgeable about their garden’s historical past and are concerned with soil quality, theft, trash maintenance, animal waste, and loss of produce from foraging animals. Study findings directly inform the field of environmental health exposure assessments by reporting gardening duration, activities that can lead to incidental soil ingestion, and consumption patterns of locally grown produce. This information combined with an understanding of a gardener’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivations can be used to develop urban agricultural infrastructure and management strategies, educational programming, and place-based environmental public health interventions.
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Waliczek, Tina M., Richard H. Mattson, and Jayne M. Zajicek. "Benefits of Community Gardening on Quality-of-Life Issues." Journal of Environmental Horticulture 14, no. 4 (December 1, 1996): 204–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.24266/0738-2898-14.4.204.
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Abstract A nationwide survey of community gardeners found differences in rankings of the importance of community gardens related to quality-of-life perceptions based on Maslow' hierarchy of human needs model. Race, gender, and city sizes affected perceptions. When comparisons were made among the four racial/ethnic divisions, responses to 18 of the 24 questions were found to be statistically different. Community gardens were especially important to African-American and Hispanic gardeners. Male and female gardeners rated quality-of-life benefits from gardens similarly in importance. However, women placed higher value on the importance of saving money and the beauty within the garden. Gardeners in small, medium, and large metropolitan cities had similar quality-of-life perceptions with only 4 of the 24 statement responses showing significant differences. Significant differences were found in 10 of the 24 statement responses between gardeners of the two large cities of Los Angeles and New York. In most cases, mean ratings were higher for gardeners in New York than those in Los Angeles.
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Kordon, Sinan, Patrick A. Miller, and Cermetrius L. Bohannon. "Attitudes and Perceptions of Community Gardens: Making a Place for Them in Our Neighborhoods." Land 11, no. 10 (October 11, 2022): 1762. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land11101762.
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Although community gardens provide numerous economic, environmental, and social benefits, some have been lost to other land uses due to the lack of organized and effective public support. Knowledge about people’s attitudes and perceptions towards these landscapes is important to achieve greater public support. This study used a scene rating survey to investigate attitudes and perceptions of four different groups (community gardeners, community and home gardeners, home gardeners, and non-gardeners) in Roanoke, Virginia. Content analysis, factor analysis, descriptive statistics, customized Kruskal- Wallis test (ANOVA) and content identifying method (CIM) procedures were used. All statistical analyses were completed at a 95% significance level using SPSS version 21. Results showed that there are seven dimensions important to participants’ preferences in community gardens including “Gathering and Seating”, “Plots with Boundaries”, “Focal Points”, “Plots without Boundaries”, Garden Entrance”, Untidy Space”, and “Composting Structures”. Excluding the “Gathering and Seating” dimension, a significant difference was detected between participant groups. Based on these dimensions, this study provides design recommendations for community garden projects to minimize possible opposition between gardeners and non-gardeners and to develop more successful community garden programs for the long-term survival of these landscapes in cities.
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Lee, Jae Ho, and David Matarrita-Cascante. "Gardeners’ Past Gardening Experience and Its Moderating Effect on Community Garden Participation." Sustainability 11, no. 12 (June 15, 2019): 3308. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su11123308.
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Studies on participation in community gardens have revealed that gardeners’ participation is driven by functional and emotional motives. Most studies, however, have failed to recognize gardeners’ diverse characteristics. To fill this research gap, this study examined the moderating effect that variations within gardeners has on their participation, particularly as in the case of past gardening experience. The data for this study were obtained through a survey administered in three plot-based community gardens in Austin, Texas. Results revealed that increased gardening experience bolsters the effect of emotional motivations on garden participation, while no effect was shown in the relationship between functional motivations and participation. The importance of gardeners’ past gardening experience on emotional motivations is discussed as it relates to sustained participation in gardening.
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Armitage, Allan M. "USING THE COMMUNITY TO TEACH PLANT MATERIALS—A REAL-WORLD STUDY IN PLANT IDENTIFICATION." HortScience 41, no. 3 (June 2006): 500A—500. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.41.3.500a.
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A teaching methodology was employed to use gardeners in the community to help in the teaching of a Herbaceous Perennial Plant Identification class (8 weeks, about 160 taxa). Most universities do not have a diverse collection of herbaceous perennials planted on campus, nor do most campuses have horticultural or botanical gardens for students. Teaching plant materials with photos alone or trying to force materials in the greenhouse is not only a horticultural challenge but seldom provides students with the important identification characteristics (habit, fragrance, fruit) of the taxon. Approximately six gardeners in the community agreed to open their private gardens to the students. Plants are evaluated 2 days before class time, and a list of plants is published on WebCT each week All gardens chosen must be within 15 minutes driving time from campus. Students were able to drive to the gardens, meet the gardeners and were exposed to the plants in garden setting. Potential problems of being unable to drive to gardens, or not being able to return to the gardens to study were not realized. Gardeners embraced the program and students were enriched by studying plants in a natural garden environment. The final examination is conducted in one of the gardens visited by the class. The use of gardeners in the community has been an important part of the class for 10 years.
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Pollard, Georgia, Philip Roetman, James Ward, Belinda Chiera, and Evangeline Mantzioris. "Beyond Productivity: Considering the Health, Social Value and Happiness of Home and Community Food Gardens." Urban Science 2, no. 4 (September 20, 2018): 97. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/urbansci2040097.
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We are living in an age of concern for mental health and wellbeing. The objective of the research presented in this paper is to investigate the perceived health, social value and happiness benefits of urban agriculture (UA) by focusing on home and community food gardens in South Australia. The results reported in this paper are from “Edible Gardens”, a citizen science project designed to investigate the social value, productivity and resource efficiency of UA in South Australia. Methods include an online survey and in-field garden data collection. Key findings include: dominant home gardener motivations were the produce, enjoyment, and health, while dominant community gardener motivations were enjoyment, connection to others and the produce. Exploratory factor analysis revealed four key factors: Tranquillity and Timeout, Develop and Learn Skills, the Produce, and Social Connection. The key difference between home and community gardeners was an overall social connection. Although home gardeners did not appear to actively value or desire inter-household social connection, this does not mean they do not value or participate in other avenues of social connection, such as via social learning sources or by sharing food with others. The combined results from this research regarding health and wellbeing, social connection and happiness support the premise that engagement in home or community food gardening may provide a preventative or supportive role for gardener health and wellbeing, regardless of whether it is a conscious motivation for participation.
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Yap, Christopher. "Self-Organisation in Urban Community Gardens: Autogestion, Motivations, and the Role of Communication." Sustainability 11, no. 9 (May 9, 2019): 2659. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su11092659.
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Urban gardens are continuously negotiated, contested, and remade. One of the primary ways that these spaces are negotiated is through the ways that communities self-organise to manage them. Drawing on critical urban scholarship, this article explores the ways in which the dynamics of self-organisation in urban gardens both shape and are shaped by the spatial development of the sites. Reflecting on two cycles of participatory video-making with urban gardeners in Seville, Spain, the article specifically examines how the motivations of the gardeners and the issue of communication influence the dynamic relationship between self-organisation and the spatial development of gardens.
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Fiskio, Janet, Md Rumi Shammin, and Vel Scott. "Cultivating Community: Black Agrarianism in Cleveland, Ohio." Gastronomica 16, no. 2 (2016): 18–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2016.16.2.18.
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In this article, we present the voices of African American urban gardeners in Cleveland, Ohio, a city in the Rust Belt. We draw attention to the history of a rich neighborhood life following the Great Migration that was grounded in political activism and mutual support. We focus on the gardener's visions of thriving, self-reliant African American communities and the desire to rebuild soil, neighborhoods, and economies. The central values articulated include hospitality, empowerment, and giving back, values that are grounded in the history and current practice of community organizing. We critique the mainstream tendency to label black bodies and African American communities as pathological, and instead argue for recognizing the skills and abilities of African American gardeners to cultivate community—that is, to build and strengthen the social, political, economic, and cultural fabric of neighborhoods.
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Hunter, Candis M., Dana H. Z. Williamson, Matthew O. Gribble, Halle Bradshaw, Melanie Pearson, Eri Saikawa, P. Barry Ryan, and Michelle Kegler. "Perspectives on Heavy Metal Soil Testing Among Community Gardeners in the United States: A Mixed Methods Approach." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16, no. 13 (July 3, 2019): 2350. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132350.
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Community gardens offer numerous benefits, but there are also potential risks from exposure to chemical contaminants in the soil. Through the lens of the Theory of Planned Behavior, this mixed methods study examined community gardeners’ beliefs and intentions to conduct heavy metal soil testing. The qualitative component involved five focus groups of community garden leaders in Atlanta, Georgia. Qualitative analysis of the focus group data revealed that heavy metal soil contamination was not frequently identified as a common gardening hazard and several barriers limited soil testing in community gardens. The focus group results informed the development of a questionnaire that was administered to 500 community gardeners across the United States. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the soil testing intention was associated with attitude (aOR = 2.46, 95% CI: 1.34, 4.53), subjective norms (aOR = 3.39 95% CI: 2.07, 5.57), and perceived behavioral control (aOR = 1.81, 95% CI: 1.10, 2.99). Study findings have implications for interventions involving community garden risk mitigation, particularly gardens that engage children and vulnerable populations.
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Harper, Krista, and Ana Isabel Afonso. "Cultivating Civic Ecology." Anthropology in Action 23, no. 1 (March 1, 2016): 6–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/aia.2016.230102.
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AbstractUrban gardens are a form of self-provisioning, leisure and activist practice that is cropping up in cities around the world (Mougeot 2010). We present the history and contemporary terrain of Lisbon’s urban gardens and discuss the cultural values that gardeners attach to the practice of growing food in interstitial urban spaces. We present initial findings from our research with an urban gardeners’ association as it attempts to transform informal or clandestine garden spaces into an ‘urban agricultural park’. This coalition of gardeners from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds is reclaiming land and using a participatory design process to create a shared space. They hope to grow vegetables and to re-grow ‘community’ by forging shared experiences in the neighbourhood. We describe how we used Photovoice as a process for exploring residents’ motivations in planting informal and community gardens on public land. What visions of sustainability and the contemporary city emerge from the practice of urban gardening? What kinds of urban gardening practices produce ‘communities of practice’ that cross ethnic, socioeconomic, and generational lines? The Photovoice approach allowed us to examine how gardeners conceptualise their use of urban space as they build new civic identities around gardening and make political claims to gain access and control over vacant land.
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Diekmann, Lucy O., Leslie C. Gray, and Gregory A. Baker. "Growing ‘good food’: urban gardens, culturally acceptable produce and food security." Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 35, no. 2 (September 3, 2018): 169–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1742170518000388.
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AbstractWith food security increasingly seen as an urban concern, urban agriculture (UA) has emerged as one strategy for improving access to healthy, affordable food within cities in the Global North. This research evaluates the contributions of three types of urban gardens in Santa Clara County, California, to food security. Survey, interview and harvest data were collected from home gardeners, community gardeners and gardeners participating in community food security (CFS) programs, which provide low-income families with the materials and training to grow their own vegetables. To assess food security we use a multi-dimensional framework that encompasses food availability, accessibility, nutritional adequacy and cultural acceptability as well as agency within the food system. Over the summer of 2015, median garden production ranged from 26 kg for participants in CFS programs to 56 kg for home gardeners. All garden types produced enough produce for at least one adult to consume the number of cups of vegetables recommended by federal nutritional guidelines. Gardening also increased some low-income gardeners’ access to healthy food, allowing them to have the diet they wanted—one high in organically grown vegetables—but could not otherwise afford to purchase. Interviews showed that gardeners do not think of cultural acceptability strictly in terms of the presence of certain types of cultural crops; they also articulated a broader set of values concerning the environmental and social conditions of food production. At all income levels, gardeners frequently described a set of food values related to knowledge, control, trust, freshness, flavor, organic production methods and sharing, which they were able to enact through gardening. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the nutritional contributions that urban gardens make but also highlight the importance that low-income gardeners place on having food that aligns with their cultural and ethical values and being able to exercise greater autonomy in making food choices. In conclusion, we suggest that more robust, holistic assessments of UA's contributions to food security will include the subjective aspects of food as well as quantitative measures related to food production.
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Balotin, Lauren, Samantha Distler, Antoinette Williams, Samuel J. W. Peters, Candis M. Hunter, Chris Theal, Gil Frank, et al. "Atlanta Residents’ Knowledge Regarding Heavy Metal Exposures and Remediation in Urban Agriculture." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 6 (March 20, 2020): 2069. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17062069.
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Urban agriculture and gardening provide many health benefits, but the soil is sometimes at risk of heavy metal and metalloid (HMM) contamination. HMM, such as lead and arsenic, can result in adverse health effects for humans. Gardeners may face exposure to these contaminants because of their regular contact with soil and consumption of produce grown in urban areas. However, there is a lack of research regarding whether differential exposure to HMM may be attributed to differential knowledge of exposure sources. In 2018, industrial slag and hazardous levels of soil contamination were detected in West Atlanta. We conducted community-engaged research through surveys and follow-up interviews to understand awareness of slag, HMM in soil, and potential remediation options. Home gardeners were more likely to recognize HMM health effects and to cite health as a significant benefit of gardening than community gardeners. In terms of knowledge, participants were concerned about the potential health effects of contaminants in soil yet unconcerned with produce in their gardens. Gardeners’ knowledge on sources of HMM exposure and methods for remediation were low and varied based on racial group.
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Sykes, Virginia R., Natalie R. Bumgarner, Stefanie Brooke Keadle, Aleksandra Wilson, and Francisco Palacios. "Citizen Science in Vegetable Garden Cultivar Evaluation in Tennessee." Horticulturae 7, no. 11 (October 21, 2021): 422. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7110422.
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Edible food production is a growing area of horticultural interest that can engage multiple generations of rural to urban residents with varying levels of experience. Residential or community garden food production can provide many benefits, including the production of healthy produce, establishment of community or social connections, and increased physical activity. Regardless of experience, food gardeners are interested in growing crops and cultivars well-suited to their region and which provide both productivity and crop quality. This means that cultivar selection is a common question for gardeners. However, formal cultivar evaluation is relatively rare in the non-commercial food production sector due to the number of cultivars, the challenges of replicated trial management, and the scarcity of public researchers focused on consumer horticulture. This limits the information available to support new gardeners, which lowers the chances of overall success including high-quality harvests. Such crop and variety selection questions are common for Extension personnel in the United States as well as many others who work with gardeners. Even with this high level of interest, funding for consumer garden trials is limited and the cost of replicated trials across various geographical sites is high. To fill this gap in research and address the need for high-quality data to support education, University of Tennessee Extension and research faculty have developed a citizen science approach called the Home Garden Variety Trial (HGVT) program. The HGVT is a collaborative effort between Extension and research faculty and educators, who select trials, provide seeds, and compile data, and citizen scientists around the state, who conduct the trials using their usual gardening practices in their own home or community gardens. Beginning in 2017, the collaborators have conducted five years of research involving over 450 individual gardeners in more than half of the counties in Tennessee. The HGVT is a novel and effective tool to introduce gardeners to new crops and cultivars while providing previously unavailable data to researchers. Together, researchers and home gardeners collect and compile data that supports residential and community food production success while engaging new and experienced gardeners in participatory science research.
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van Holstein, Ellen. "Strategies of self-organising communities in a gentrifying city." Urban Studies 57, no. 6 (April 4, 2019): 1284–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042098019832468.
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While commonly pitched as potential spaces for the empowerment of marginalised minority groups, self-organised projects such as community gardens are also susceptible to neoliberal discourses and governance mechanisms. While relationships between community gardening and gentrification are now well established, less is known about the grassroots strategies of garden groups in the context of such conditions and the ways in which gentrification changes the community gardening movement itself. This paper combines conceptual approaches to community gardens as shaping citizen-subjectivities and as projects positioned in networks to offer detailed insight into strategic responses of community gardeners to a gentrifying environment. The paper highlights how demographic change, neighbourhood densification and changes in the attitude of local government shape three community gardens in Sydney, Australia. The paper reveals that, more than government policy, changes that gardeners observe in the neighbourhood and their perceptions of local government’s attitude towards different community gardens in the vicinity, shape how they manage community gardens. Interactions and responses of garden groups to perceived threats, as well as changes in the projects’ social composition, can lead to the emergence of conflict and competition. As it becomes increasingly clear that inequalities in the surrounding urban environment manifest as part of the social fabric of community spaces, the paper demonstrates that communities are differently positioned to articulate strategies in response to perceived precarity and that these strategies can amplify unequal opportunities for distinct garden groups to persist into the future.
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Veen, Esther J., and Sebastian Eiter. "Vegetables and Social Relations in Norway and the Netherlands." Nature and Culture 13, no. 1 (March 1, 2018): 135–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/nc.2018.130107.
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This article aims to explore differences in motivation for and actual use of allotment gardens. Results from questionnaire surveys and semistructured interviews in two Norwegian and one Dutch garden show that growing vegetables and consuming the harvest is a fundamental part of gardening. The same is true for the social element—meeting and talking to other gardeners, and feeling as part of a community. Although gardeners with different socioeconomic backgrounds experience gardening to some extent similarly, access to an allotment seems more important for gardeners with disadvantaged personal backgrounds: both their diets and their social networks rely more on, and benefit more from, their allotments. This underlines the importance of providing easy access to gardening opportunities for all urban residents, and disadvantaged groups in particular. Public officers and policy makers should consider this when deciding upon new gardening sites or public investments in urban food gardens.
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Robbins*, Jo Ann, Susan Bell, Tim Davis, and Kevin Laughlin. "The Idaho Master Gardener Program—Diverse, Different, and Meeting Local Needs." HortScience 39, no. 4 (July 2004): 784A—784. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.39.4.784a.
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Master Gardener training was first offered in Idaho in 1976. Univ. of Idaho (U of I) Master Gardener trainings are held in various counties and organized by county extension faculty. The number of Master Gardeners in Idaho is estimated at 1800. In 1993, U of I published the first edition of the Idaho Master Gardener Handbook. This 23-chapter state-specific handbook is revised annually. The first chapter outlines the Idaho Master Gardener guidelines. These were the first statewide guidelines. The Idaho program requires a minimum of 30 hours of classes and 30 hours of practicum/hands-on training (the volunteer commitment). Certification is received after these requirements are met and is good for one year. Annual recertification is provided through participation in Advanced Master Gardener trainings and activities. These recertification programs differ; depending on wants and needs within Idaho. The U of I Horticulture Programming Topic Team loosely organizes all county efforts, but there is no statewide Master Gardener program in Idaho. Each region and county brings a unique framework to the title Master Gardener. Hands-on training in many counties includes problem solving services to phone and office visiting clients. Other horticultural community and extension projects are the balance of the hands on hours. Idaho Master Gardeners also serve as uniquely qualified educators in a state as geographically diverse as Idaho. In 2001, the Idaho Junior Master Gardener Program began in cooperation with Idaho Master Gardeners and Texas A&M Univ.. Over 2000 youth and 200 adults have been involved in Idaho.
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Mejia, Angie, Manami Bhattacharya, and Joshua Miraglia. "Community Gardening as a Way to Build Cross-Cultural Community Resilience in Intersectionally Diverse Gardeners: Community-Based Participatory Research and Campus-Community-Partnered Proposal." JMIR Research Protocols 9, no. 10 (October 7, 2020): e21218. http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/21218.
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Background Community-based agriculture has been found to decrease food insecurity and alleviate health inequities. Furthermore, it provides a sense of ownership, resources to help integrate new communities, and a space to nurture existing cultural identities for intersectionally diverse gardeners. This sense of belonging in connection with access to growing plots has been linked to psychological well-being and resilience. However, little is known about how the psychosocial benefits of plot ownership affect resilience and which aspects of this resilience are salient. Objective This community-based participatory research (CBPR) project will examine the role of community gardens in decreasing food insecurity and facilitating various forms of resilience in food-insecure groups in Rochester, Minnesota. Since participation in community gardens nurtures various forms of resilience along individual, group, and community dimensions, our research seeks to understand how dimensions of resilience vary along intersectional lines. In addition to mapping the psychosocial benefits linked to plot ownership, we find that examining which forms of resilience are fostered in community-based agricultural projects addresses an important gap in the academic literature. This can help us propose policy-level practices that reduce health inequities connected to food and nutrition at the local level. Methods Using a mixed methods approach, this ongoing community-campus partnership will examine the experiences of current and new plot owners. As a CBPR project, our data collection plan, from design to dissemination, incorporates the intellectual and creative labor of the individuals representing members of the campus community (ie, college students and faculty members engaged in other citizen science projects hosted by the garden), community growers, individuals involved in the community garden’s board, and representatives of various organizational bodies. Data collection activities will consist of surveys, in-depth interviews, and photovoice. Results This project was funded in January 2020 and approved by the University of Minnesota's Institutional Review Board in March 2020. For the 2020 growing season, we will conduct evaluative interviews about the effect of COVID-19 on community gardeners, including their experiences during this growing season. For the 2021 growing season, data collection, via pre- and postsurveys, is projected to begin in March 2021 and end in November 2021. We will also conduct in-depth interviews from January to April 2021. Data analysis will commence in April 2021. Photovoice activities (ie, data collection, analysis, synthesis, and dissemination) are expected to take place during the spring and summer of 2021. Conclusions Findings emerging from this study will provide the preliminary data to foreground community gardening projects and initiatives to improve physical and mental health outcomes in food-insecure communities. Also, the data collected will highlight the role of CBPR methods in disseminating information about the organizational practices of the community garden; this will assist others in planning and implementing similar projects. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) PRR1-10.2196/21218
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Waliczek, T. M., J. M. Zajicek, and R. D. Lineberger. "The Influence of Gardening Activities on Consumer Perceptions of Life Satisfaction." HortScience 40, no. 5 (August 2005): 1360–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.40.5.1360.
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A survey based on the Life Satisfaction Inventory A (LSIA) was used to investigate gardeners' and nongardeners' perceptions of life satisfaction. The LSIA was developed in 1961 by Neugarten and measures five components of quality of life including zest for life, resolution and fortitude, congruence between desired and achieved goals, high physical, psychological and social self-concept, and a happy optimistic mood tone. The survey was posted for four months on one of the largest online resources for Texas Master Gardeners within the Aggie Horticulture network, the Texas Master Gardener Web page (http:aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/mastergd/mg.html). During the 4 months, 402 responses were gathered. Additionally, identical `paper/pencil' format surveys were distributed to garden, church, social and community groups with about 400 responses received. In each group of participants, respondents differentiated themselves as gardeners or nongardeners by responding positively or negatively to the survey question, Do you garden? Results indicated statistically significant differences in comparisons of the overall life satisfaction scores with gardeners receiving higher mean scores indicating more positive results on the LSIA. When responses to individual statements were analyzed, results indicated statistically significant differences on 20% of the statements. Differences were detected on statements relating to energy levels, optimism, zest for life, and physical self-concept with gardeners answering more positively on all statements when compared to nongardeners' responses. Additionally, gardeners rated their overall health and their physical activity levels higher than did nongardeners.
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Marsh, Pauline, Sebrina Brennan, and Miriam Vandenberg. "'It's not therapy, it's gardening': community gardens as sites of comprehensive primary healthcare." Australian Journal of Primary Health 24, no. 4 (2018): 337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/py17149.
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Using a participatory research framework, researchers at the Centre for Rural Health, University of Tasmania, explored the potential of Community Gardens to function as comprehensive primary healthcare (CPHC) environments. Community gardeners, coordinators, volunteers and Neighbourhood House coordinators discussed their understandings of the health benefits of community gardens, how they contribute to broad CPHC aims and the barriers and enablers to greater CPHC contributions in the future. This research identifies therapeutic features of Community Gardens and explores the correlations between these and CPHC. It is concluded that there are strong synergies between the aims and activities of Community Gardens and CPHC. To augment the therapeutic capacity of these sites requires adequate resourcing and skill development, suitable design, funding and policy support, along with innovative partnerships with health professionals.
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Koay, Way Inn, and Denise Dillon. "Community Gardening: Stress, Well-Being, and Resilience Potentials." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 18 (September 16, 2020): 6740. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186740.
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The financial and health burdens of stress associated with increased urbanization have led to a demand for mental health enhancement strategies. While some extant literature details mental health benefits of community gardening, a coherent narrative on the construct of resilience and its relationship with the mental health benefits of community gardening is lacking. The present study examined the relationship between community gardening and a number of mental health benefits, in the forms of subjective well-being, stress, resilience potentials, and resilience factors (self-esteem, optimism, and openness). A total of 111 residents in Singapore completed a survey. Results from Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) and Pearson’s correlation analyses show that, after controlling for age and levels of connection to nature, community gardeners reported significantly higher levels of subjective well-being than individual/home gardeners and non-gardeners, indicating that engagement in community gardening may be superior to individual/home gardening or non-gardening outdoor activities. Community gardeners reported higher levels of resilience and optimism than the non-gardening control group. These novel results indicate some potential for mental health benefits in urban environments, specifically in terms of subjective well-being and resilience. These findings have implications for future research in clinical psychology, mental health promotion, and policy.
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Goralnik, Lissy, Lucero Radonic, Vanessa Garcia Polanco, and Angel Hammon. "Growing Community: Factors of Inclusion for Refugee and Immigrant Urban Gardeners." Land 12, no. 1 (December 26, 2022): 68. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land12010068.
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Urban agriculture is an important neighborhood revitalization strategy in the U.S. Rust Belt, where deindustrialization has left blighted and vacant land in the urban core. Immigrants and refugees represent a growing and important stakeholder group in urban agriculture, including in community gardens across the Rust Belt Midwest. Community gardens provide a host of social and economic benefits to urban landscapes, including increased access to culturally appropriate food and medicinal plants for refugee and immigrant growers. Our work in Lansing, Michigan was part of a collaboration with the Greater Lansing Food Bank’s Garden Project (GLFGP) to describe the refugee and immigrant community gardening experience in three urban gardens with high refugee and immigrant enrollment. Our research describes the ways garden management facilitates inclusion for refugee and immigrant gardeners and how particular factors of inclusion in turn contribute to social capital, an important outcome that plays a critical role in refugee and immigrant subjective wellbeing.
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Takle, Bryn, Cynthia Haynes, and Denny Schrock. "Motivation and Retention of Iowa Master Gardeners." HortTechnology 26, no. 4 (August 2016): 522–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/horttech.26.4.522.
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Recruitment and training of new volunteers is necessary to grow a Master Gardener organization, but retention of current individuals has advantages. Aligning reasons for volunteering with recruitment and continuing education topics with the interests of volunteers is essential in a successful recruitment and retention plan. The objectives of this study were to determine the motivations for volunteering in the Iowa Master Gardener program and to identify popular continuing education topics, preferred delivery methods, and social media usage among this audience. Learning about gardening and horticulture was the most important reason Iowa Master Gardeners volunteer with the program. In addition, altruism is important to these volunteers, but they do not recognize the full impact their projects have on their local community. They have a strong interest in learning about native plants and sustainable horticultural practices. The most preferred delivery methods were live presentations and workshops. Video presentations and webinars were generally less preferred. Respondents used certain social media sites, such as Facebook and Pinterest, some or a lot. Although this study was limited to Iowa Master Gardeners, results regarding motivation factors align closely with previous studies. We speculate that the results for advanced training topics, delivery methods, and social media usage would similarly align for Master Gardener programs across the country.
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Rohs, Frederick R., and Robert R. Westerfield. "Factors Influencing Volunteering in the Master Gardener Program." HortTechnology 6, no. 3 (July 1996): 281–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/horttech.6.3.281.
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Limited budgets and downsizing have threatened the delivery of technological and educational information by the cooperative extension service. As such trends continue, volunteers become more important. Background factors, influence of specific individuals, attitudes toward the value of the program, and personal benefits received influence a person's decision to become a Master Gardener volunteer. In this study, individuals who were older than 50 and had children and parents who were former volunteers in an extension program were more likely to become Master Gardener volunteers, as were individuals who felt that the Master Gardener program benefited the community and themselves. Specific individuals, such as garden club members, other Master Gardeners, a neighbor, or persons holding leadership positions in the community, might also influence an individual's decision to volunteer.
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Grubb, Megan, and Christian R. Vogl. "Understanding Food Literacy in Urban Gardeners: A Case Study of the Twin Cities, Minnesota." Sustainability 11, no. 13 (July 1, 2019): 3617. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su11133617.
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Substantial urbanization has allowed individuals to become increasingly spatially and psychologically distanced from the food system and agricultural practices. Food literacy (FL) has been described as a promising approach to reconnect the city with the country and furthermore address public health issues such as obesity and diet-related disease. The present study examined urban gardening through the lens of the FL approach to determine whether a relationship exists between gardening and FL. The research further investigated the relationship between FL and gardener demographics, participation in educational garden events and socialization among gardeners. Data was collected using an online questionnaire targeted to reach community gardeners (n = 181) in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. The research utilized a novel exam and self-perception based measurement tool to assess gardeners’ level of FL. Results indicated a moderately positive relationship between the years of gardening experience and higher individual FL scores. Participants with higher levels of FL were older individuals and more highly educated. There was no significant difference in FL between gardeners who attended educational events and those that had not. The present research presents an initial investigation into the relationship between food literacy and gardening. This research indicates gardening may warrant consideration in holistic approaches to food literacy but further investigation would be valuable.
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Moquin, Rob, Alan P. Diduck, A. John Sinclair, and Iain J. Davidson-Hunt. "Cultivating community through gardening in Kenora, Ontario." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation 3, no. 2 (December 15, 2016): 70–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v3i2.167.
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Community gardens are places where people connect, share, and engage their social and ecological communities. The purpose of this research was to document and communicate participants’ experiences of community-building through community gardening in Kenora, Ontario, Canada. The primary method used was Photovoice, whereby a group of twelve participants shared photos and stories of their garden communities in a series of workshops. Follow-up interviews were used to get participant feedback on the photovoice process and fill gaps in the data, while participant observation was used to triangulate data. Results suggest a uniquely relational perspective of community gardening, the significance of sharing and learning in the garden, as well as success with and barriers to social capital and ecological citizenship among gardeners. Of particular importance, future garden initiatives in Kenora will likely require a combination of institutional and grass-roots efforts to facilitate intergenerational bonding, connecting across community gardens, building gardens in accessible locations, and addressing colonial and racial barriers to collaboration.
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Guerlain, Madeleine A., and Catherine Campbell. "From sanctuaries to prefigurative social change: Creating health-enabling spaces in East London community gardens." Journal of Social and Political Psychology 4, no. 1 (May 24, 2016): 220–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.526.
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How do community gardens impact the psycho-social well-being of marginalized groups in urban settings? And to what extent are they examples of prefigurative social change, understood as the development of social relations that prefigure a more equal and empowering social world? We explore these issues through qualitative research with four community garden groups in East London, thematically analysing interviews and group discussions with 28 gardeners, Photovoice with 12 gardeners producing 250 photographs, and 40 hours of participant observation. We offer two unique insights: a novel understanding of how participation in community gardens affects well-being through creating ‘health-enabling social spaces’ (Campbell, C., & Cornish, F. (2010). Towards a “fourth generation” of approaches to HIV/AIDS management: Creating contexts for effective community mobilization. AIDS Care, 22(Suppl. 2), 1569-1579); and a discussion of how creating these spaces is an act of prefigurative social change. Our findings suggest that in East London, participation in community gardens is not based on a common political intention or self-conscious motive to prefigure a new society, but instead on the shared practice of gardening. This results in unintended benefits that often address participants’ personal adversities in ways that contribute to the material, relational and symbolic deprivation of their daily lives – opening up new possibilities for being, seeing and doing. In this sense, community gardens in East London offer an alternative to traditional notions of prefigurative social action that are predicated on strategic intention. We argue for an understanding of prefiguration that better accounts for what participants themselves would like to achieve in their own lives, rather than in relation to externally imposed notions of what counts as political change.
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Jordi-Sánchez, Mario, and Antonio Luis Díaz-Aguilar. "Constructing Organic Food through Urban Agriculture, Community Gardens in Seville." Sustainability 13, no. 8 (April 7, 2021): 4091. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13084091.
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The growing presence of community or allotment gardens seeks to respond to the challenges of today’s urban societies in terms of sustainability. The food dimension of this phenomenon is one of its most important aspects, with clear repercussions on improving the quality of life of the allotment gardeners and their families. Through observation and qualitative analysis of some community urban gardens in southern Spain (Andalusia), this paper notes that the people who cultivate allotments within these community gardens attribute a wide variety of different meanings to their practices. One essential contribution of this research is the finding that this plurality of meanings moves beyond the rational-technical dimension of the act of growing, while at the same time redefining the act of consuming organic food, because of its connection with productive and social activities.
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Lucas, Laura. "Food, Diversity, and Cultural Identity." Contingent Horizons: The York University Student Journal of Anthropology 6, no. 1 (June 29, 2022): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.25071/2292-6739.112.
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The Rainbow Community Garden is a place for new immigrant and refugee families in Winnipeg to grow their own food. Using the Rainbow Community Garden as a case study, this paper contributes to ongoing discussions about community gardening by applying an anthropological lens to the multilayered meanings of agriculture in urban environments. This paper is focused on the benefits and challenges of community gardening in the context of new immigrant and refugee experiences. Through a literature review and interviews with gardeners, the role of food and community gardens as a means of facilitating cross cultural interactions, providing culturally appropriate food for new immigrants and refugees, and expressing cultural identity is brought into emphasis. I draw on Strunk and Richardson’s (2019) concepts of the material, imagined, and community’s garden, to reflect on the different ways in which the community garden is used and experienced by immigrant and refugee gardeners. The main conclusion of this research is that, in the context of new immigrant and refugee participation in community gardening, a garden is not only the physical soil, vegetables, and flowers, but also an important place for practicing one’s culture and for engaging in meaningful cross cultural interaction that is beneficial in adjusting to a new life in Canada.
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Svendsen, Erika S., Lindsay K. Campbell, Nancy Falxa-Raymound, Jessica Northridge, Edie Stone, and Carolin Mees. "Introducing a Longitudinal Study of Community Gardeners and Gardens in New York City." Cities and the Environment 5, no. 1 (2012): 1–5. http://dx.doi.org/10.15365/cate.51112012.
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Cattivelli, Valentina. "The Motivation of Urban Gardens in Mountain Areas. The Case of South Tyrol." Sustainability 12, no. 10 (May 25, 2020): 4304. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su12104304.
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Urban gardens have attracted considerable academic attention in recent years. Several studies have, in fact, emphasized their positive contribution in terms of social integration, community health, urban regeneration, and food security, and explored individual gardeners´ motivations behind these practices. While these topics are well-documented with reference to metropolitan urban areas, few studies have been carried out in relation to other contexts such as mountain areas. This limited interest is probably due to the reduced urbanization of these areas, a preference for other forms of horticulture (essentially those practiced in people’s own homes) or the use of different solutions to mitigate the negative effects of social problems. The recent proliferation of urban gardens in South Tyrol (IT) makes this mountain province an interesting laboratory for practices and narratives associated with socially innovative urban gardening experiences. This paper presents a characterization of all urban gardening initiatives in South Tyrol through cartographical representation. It explains gardeners´ and public institutions´ motivations, as well as non-gardeners’ perceptions of urban gardening. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in the various South Tyrolean municipalities where urban gardening projects have been undertaken. The results suggest the great importance of the social and environmental aspect of urban gardens, and an interest in reconnecting with food practices even when food access is not a priority.
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Park, Sin-Ae, Candice A. Shoemaker, and Mark D. Haub. "Physical and Psychological Health Conditions of Older Adults Classified as Gardeners or Nongardeners." HortScience 44, no. 1 (February 2009): 206–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.44.1.206.
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The objective of this study was to compare the physical and psychological health conditions and leisure-time activities, particularly physical activities (PAs), of older gardeners and nongardeners. Fifty-three older adults were recruited from the community of Manhattan, KS. Three groups were classified based on results from the Community Healthy Activities Model Program for Seniors questionnaire: active gardeners (n = 11) classified as gardeners that met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) PA recommendation through gardening; gardeners (n = 14) classified as gardeners that did not meet the CDC's PA recommendation through gardening; and nongardeners (n = 28). Overall physical and mental health conditions were determined with the Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36), hand function (hand strength and pinch force) was determined by dynamometers, and bone mineral density (BMD) was determined by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Active gardeners were significantly different from gardeners and nongardeners in physical health (P ≤ 0.05) on SF-36. There were no differences in mental health among the three groups, but all groups had scores higher than the U.S. general population. Active gardeners + gardeners had greater hand strength and pinch force than nongardeners. There was no difference in BMD among the groups, but all subjects had higher scores than the standard BMD value for their age. The only significant difference of caloric expenditure in leisure-time PAs among the groups was gardening (P < 0.001). In conclusion, gardening can be a useful strategy to meet the CDC's PA recommendation. In addition to the health benefits linked to regular PA, this study showed that gardening promotes hand strength, pinch force, and overall physical health.
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Alaimo, Katherine, Elizabeth Packnett, Richard A. Miles, and Daniel J. Kruger. "Fruit and Vegetable Intake among Urban Community Gardeners." Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 40, no. 2 (March 2008): 94–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2006.12.003.
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Chennault, Klavitter, and Sutton. "Visceral Encounters: A Political Ecology of Urban Land, Food, and Housing in Dubuque, Iowa." Social Sciences 8, no. 4 (April 18, 2019): 122. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci8040122.
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Through a praxis of co-authorship between a university scholar and two community gardeners/organizers/activists, this article showcases the ways in which knowledge, practices, and relationalities emergent in community gardens in Dubuque, Iowa USA directly engage with the politics of food, land, and housing. The authors engage in co-authorship across university and community boundaries to ontologically reframe knowledge production and draw critical attention to the everyday livelihoods and political ecologies experienced within marginalized communities. We use extended conversations and interviews to analyze the food, land, and housing issues that emerge in the context of uneven racial relations and neighborhood revitalization. We then organize our analysis using a Political Ecology of the Body (PEB) framework to consider how people’s bodily, emotional, and social lives impact their relationalities with food, gardening, and neighborhood spaces. Our findings show that community gardening efforts are transforming the Washington and North End neighborhoods—even if these changes appear to outsiders to be small-scale or difficult to measure—while also calling attention to the anti-oppression and anti-racism work that remains to be done. Our co-authorship demonstrates how community gardeners and university partners can work together to contest histories of marginalization and foster more socially just relations.
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Roberts, Sky, and Charlie Shackleton. "Temporal Dynamics and Motivations for Urban Community Food Gardens in Medium-Sized Towns of the Eastern Cape, South Africa." Land 7, no. 4 (November 26, 2018): 146. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land7040146.
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Urban agriculture is said to be increasing with global urbanization. However, there is little examination of the temporal or spatial dynamics of urban agriculture. We investigated the benefits and challenges experienced by community gardeners in four towns in South Africa, along with GIS analysis of the number, area, and location of urban food community gardens over the last three decades. Common reasons for practicing community gardening were cash poverty (37%) and the need to grow food (34%). The most common benefits reported by respondents were a healthy lifestyle (58%) and consumption of the food produced (54%). Theft of garden infrastructure or produce was a noteworthy challenge to continued motivation and engagement in urban community gardening. There were declines in the number and area of urban community gardens, and more central location over the last three decades. Only 16% of the gardens present in the 1980s were still operating in the 2000s. Clearly community gardening is temporally and spatially dynamic, which requires context-sensitive policy initiatives.
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Meyer, Mary Hockenberry. "685 Junior Master Gardener Programs in Minnesota." HortScience 35, no. 3 (June 2000): 517A—517. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.35.3.517a.
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Development of a new children's horticulture curriculum, the Junior Master Gardener program, from Texas A&M Univ. has lead to several youth projects in Minnesota. In Chisago County, Minn., Master Gardeners have instructed 4-H leaders who taught weekly sessions to elementary age children. Older teens have been leaders in this project as well. In Hennepin County, Minn., the program has been used by teachers and Master Gardeners in a formal classroom setting. Additional programs in Anoka, Rice, Winona, and Washington Counties, Minn., have used this curriculum. Leaders say the strengths of the program are the extensive and detailed list of projects, the impact on the local community when children do the service component, and children's learning of the scientific concepts that are the basis of the program. Cost of the materials and distribution are negative features. Further program examples will be highlighted and detailed at this workshop.
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Nagel, David H. "Master Gardening at a Distance." HortScience 32, no. 4 (July 1997): 592A—592. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.32.4.592a.
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Master Gardener was taught by distance learning through the Mississippi Community College Network (CCN) in 1995 and 1996. Specialists delivered information from a studio on campus while the Master Gardeners were in classrooms in Clarksdale, Fulton, and Moorhead. The interactive video format was well accepted by most of the clientele. Specialists appreciated having to present each lecture once rather than traveling to each location and deliver each topic three times. The use of interactive video is currently being reevaluated due to two major factors: the increased use of CCN by Community Colleges has made scheduling the required weekly 4-hour block very difficult; and, the cost-ineffective method for delivering the training. Current Master Gardener training programs in Mississippi are being implemented through traditional classroom and field methods.
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McFarland, Amy, Tina M. Waliczek, Jayne M. Zajicek, and R. Dan Lineberger. "Eating Habits and Knowledge of Nutrition in Older Adults: A Comparison of Gardeners and Nongardeners." HortTechnology 23, no. 6 (December 2013): 843–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/horttech.23.6.843.
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A survey was used to investigate gardeners’ and nongardeners’ nutritional attitudes, fruit and vegetable consumption, and nutritional knowledge. The survey was posted for 4 months on one of the largest online resources for Master Gardeners. During the 4 months, 402 responses were gathered. Additionally, identical “paper/pencil” format surveys were distributed to garden, church, and social and community groups with ≈400 responses received. In each group of participants, respondents differentiated themselves as gardeners or nongardeners by responding positively or negatively to the survey question, “do you garden?” No statistically significant relationships were found relating fruit and vegetable consumption to either income level or educational attainment status in the overall sample. Results indicated statistically significant differences in comparisons between gardeners and nongardeners with regards to nutritional attitudes and their consumption of fruit and vegetables where gardeners had more positive nutritional attitude scores and increased consumption of fruit and vegetables. However, no statistically significant differences were found between gardeners’ and nongardeners’ nutritional knowledge.
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Sturm, Ulrike, Tanja M. Straka, Alexandra Moormann, and Monika Egerer. "Fascination and Joy: Emotions Predict Urban Gardeners’ Pro-Pollinator Behaviour." Insects 12, no. 9 (September 2, 2021): 785. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12090785.
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The conservation of pollinators requires social understanding to catalyse restoration action. Citizen science (CS) is discussed as a way to promote interest and action for pollinating insects. Yet, the drivers behind pro-pollinator behaviour are largely unclear, especially in urban areas. To better understand public engagement in pollinator conservation, we studied urban community gardeners’ identity, nature-relatedness, emotions, and attitudes toward pollinators and their intentions to get involved in pro-pollinator behaviour in their gardening practice. We surveyed community gardeners in Berlin and Munich, Germany, some of which were participating in a citizen science project. In this scientific study, we created four different sets of generalized linear models to analyse how the gardeners’ pro-pollinator behaviour intentions and behaviour were explained by socio-psychological factors. The responses of 111 gardeners revealed that gardeners that were fascinated by pollinators, held positive attitudes and felt joy about seeing pollinators reported intentions to protect or support pollinators, suggesting that fascination and joy can be harnessed for research and conservation on pollinators. Similarly, joy about seeing pollinators predicted participation in the CS project. We believe that CS may represent a pathway through which urban residents may become key actors in conservation projects within their nearby greenspaces.
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Lee, Jae Ho, and David Matarrita-Cascante. "The influence of emotional and conditional motivations on gardeners’ participation in community (allotment) gardens." Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 42 (June 2019): 21–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2019.05.006.
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GLOVER, TROY D. "Social Capital in the Lived Experiences of Community Gardeners." Leisure Sciences 26, no. 2 (April 2004): 143–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01490400490432064.
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Ding, Xiaoying, Yukun Zhang, Jie Zheng, and Xiaopeng Yue. "Design and Social Factors Affecting the Formation of Social Capital in Chinese Community Garden." Sustainability 12, no. 24 (December 19, 2020): 10644. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su122410644.
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In recent years, community gardens are becoming more and more popular in China. However, the role of these community gardens varies significantly: some community gardens serve as an effective means of promoting social capital, while others cause social contradictions and public doubts due to the lack of professional design and management. Therefore, this paper aims to learn and better understand what factors affect the formation of social capital in Chinese community gardens. It screened eleven design factors and seven social factors and made social capital scale through literature review and expert workshop. On this basis, this study selected 35 community gardens in China as sample spaces, and collected 1257 questionnaires about the perception for social capital of gardeners through survey. In the statistical analysis phase, factor analysis and regression analysis were applied to analyze the role and the relative importance of different factors and social capital. Results show that the integration with green infrastructure, accessibility, size, visual openness, planting form, proportion of unproductive landscape, agricultural infrastructure, and smart infrastructure have significant impacts on social capital level. Meanwhile, the types of stakeholders, management rules, supervision system, self-management team, and operational activities have similar impacts on social capital level. This study recommends that planners and designers should adjust the above related factors in community garden design, and local government is urged to integrate community gardens into urban plans and public policies.
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Althaus Ottmann, Michelle Melissa, Juliana A. Maantay, Kristen Grady, and Nilce N. Fonte. "Characterization of Urban Agricultural Practices and Gardeners' Perspective in Bronx Community Gardens, New York City." Cities and the Environment 5, no. 1 (2012): 1–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.15365/cate.51132012.
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Etheredge, Coleman L., Tina M. Waliczek, and Jayne M. Zajicek. "The Influence of Gardening Activities on Self-reported Health Problems, Allergies, and Body Mass Index." HortTechnology 26, no. 6 (December 2016): 776–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/horttech03546-16.
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In the last quarter century, the epidemic of overweight and obese Americans has increased strikingly. This, in turn, has caused a substantial rise in the risk of cardiovascular diseases, cholesterol, hypertension, osteoarthritis, stroke, type II diabetes, specific forms of cancer, and other diseases. The main purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of gardening activities on activity levels, body mass index (BMI), allergies, and reported overall health of gardeners and nongardeners. The sample population was drawn from two sources: an online survey and an identical paper-pencil formatted survey, which was distributed to church, garden, and community service groups within Texas and parts of the mid-western United States. A total of 1015 people participated in the study. Results from this study indicated nongardeners were less physically active when compared with gardeners. However, frequency of gardening did not have a statistically significant impact on gardeners’ BMI. There was also no difference in BMI between gardeners and nongardeners. Gardeners indicated having more frequently reoccurring symptoms for “ear infection/ear ache,” “high cholesterol,” “kidney stone,” “gallstones,” and “arthritis,” indicating gardening may be being used as a distraction therapy, helping gardeners to cope with pain and remain active when other forms of exercise may not be an option. There was no statistically significant difference in incidence of allergies between gardeners and nongardeners.
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O'Callaghan*, Angela. "The Master Gardeners of Southern Nevada." HortScience 39, no. 4 (July 2004): 839E—840. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.39.4.839e.
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Gardening in the Mojave requires different skills from those needed elsewhere. Southern Nevada's population explosion greatly increased requests for appropriate horticultural information. This placed a large demand on Cooperative Extension. To meet the need, volunteers receive extensive training on topics of interest to residents. Those who complete training and meet other requirements are titled “Master Gardeners”. Two hundred volunteers staff a help-line 5 days per week and participate in 20 community projects designed and led by Master Gardeners under UNCE supervision. About 50 people annually attend a 70 hour session (daytime or evening). The evening session was added to give people with day jobs the chance to learn gardening information in order to contribute to the community. Extension faculty and other professionals teach the classes. Topics include horticulture and plant nutrition, soils, irrigation, pruning, plant diseases and insects, and desert ecology. Students evaluate each class. Attendees come to the program through mass media and word of mouth. Most Master Gardeners are white, but active recruitment has increased the number of participants of color. For certification, one must complete training, pass a comprehensive final exam, and give a minimum of 50 hours—15 hours at the help desk and another 35 hours either at the help desk or a project. Volunteers are recertified each year if they contribute at least 35 hours at projects or the help desk and spend 15 hours in continuing education. Those who cannot meet the requirements are placed on inactive status. Adding an orientation session introducing Cooperative Extension, the MG program and its volunteer requirement has improved the ratio of attendees to those who later become certified.
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Evers, Anna, and Nicole Louise Hodgson. "Food choices and local food access among Perth's community gardeners." Local Environment 16, no. 6 (July 2011): 585–602. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2011.575354.
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Kim, Brent F., Melissa N. Poulsen, Jared D. Margulies, Katie L. Dix, Anne M. Palmer, and Keeve E. Nachman. "Urban Community Gardeners' Knowledge and Perceptions of Soil Contaminant Risks." PLoS ONE 9, no. 2 (February 6, 2014): e87913. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087913.
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Taylor, John R., and Sarah Taylor Lovell. "Urban home gardens in the Global North: A mixed methods study of ethnic and migrant home gardens in Chicago, IL." Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 30, no. 1 (May 16, 2014): 22–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1742170514000180.
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AbstractIn the United States, interest in urban farms and community gardens is flourishing, yet the urban home food garden (UHFG) and its contributions to urban systems have been overlooked and understudied. To begin to address this gap, we are conducting a mixed methods study of African American, Chinese-origin and Mexican-origin households with home gardens in Chicago, IL. Study methods include in-depth interviews, participant observation, ethnobotanical surveys and analysis of the chemical and physical properties of garden soils. As of this writing, findings indicate that home gardening has an array of beneficial effects, contributing to household food budgets and community food systems, the reproduction of cultural identity and urban biodiversity. The majority of informants in the study were internal or international migrants. For these individuals, gardening, culture-specific food plant assemblages and the foodways they support represent a continuation of cultural practices and traditional agroecological knowledge associated with their place of origin. The gardens of some migrant households also harbor urban agrobiodiversity with roots in the Global South. At the same time, gardens may have less salubrious effects on urban systems and populations. A lack of knowledge of safe gardening practices may expose vulnerable populations to environmental hazards such as soil contaminants. Gardeners in this study reported using synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides, sometimes indiscriminately, and the repeated application of synthetic fertilizers and compost may contribute to the nutrient loading of urban stormwater runoff. These effects may be moderated by the relatively low bulk density and high porosity of garden soils due to tillage and the application of organic matter, which can be expected to enhance stormwater infiltration. While the UHFG's potential contributions to urban systems are significant, outreach and research are needed to help gardeners grow food safely and sustainably in ways that contribute to overall ecosystem health.
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Dorn, Sheri T., Marc T. Aveni, and Paula Diane Relf. "Master Gardener–Water Stewards: Advanced Training to Enhance Community Volunteerism." HortScience 32, no. 3 (June 1997): 492C—492. http://dx.doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.32.3.492c.
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Virginia Cooperative Extension's (VCE) Master Gardener–Water Steward program (MGWS) provides advanced training in leadership development and water quality management to Master Gardener (MG) volunteer educators so that they may expand the influence of Extension through leadership in community water quality management. Typically, agents cite limited staff and volunteer resources as the primary factor in restricting program expansion. The MGWS program simultaneously answers the desire of MGs to expand their role in the community landscape and the need of VCE to expand its outreach with increasingly limited resources. MGWS training, guided by a 10-unit resource book, integrates technical and program management expertise to foster volunteer pride and self-sufficiency. This allows MGWS to coordinate much of their own training and recruit and manage large numbers of non-MG volunteers to whom they can provide limited training for specific projects, thus allowing program expansion without additional staff. The Advanced Master Gardener–Water Steward Handbook allows for appropriate training of Master Gardeners so that Extension education is able to reach a larger audience than just that reachable by an agent alone. Eight slide sets on water-quality related topics are available as part of this program. They come complete with legible, easy-to-read scripts. Updated slide sets include Calibrating Your Lawn Spreader (40 slides), Minimum Chemical Vegetable Gardening (62 slides), Backyard Composting (56 slides), Reading and Understanding the Pesticide Label for Lawn and Garden (41 slides), Landscape Tree and Shrub Fertilization (43 slides), Applying Pesticides Safely for the Environment (47 slides), Water Quality and Landscaping Slide Set (48 slides), and Proper Management of Fertilizers on Home Lawns (40 slides).
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Rushigira, Cadeau, Germaine Furaha Mirindi, and Stany Vwima Ngezirabona. "Socio-technical Context of Market Gardening in the Ruzizi Plain in Eastern DRC: Constraints and Stakeholders' Strategies." European Journal of Agriculture and Food Sciences 3, no. 3 (May 23, 2021): 69–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ejfood.2021.3.3.295.
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The Ruzizi Plain in general and the community of Ruzizi Plain in particular, although having considerable potential for the development of market gardening, do not manage to satisfy the demand for market garden produce in the main consumption area (Bukavu town), which continues largely to depend on Rwanda in its supplies. This situation suggests that market gardening in Ruzizi Plain is conducted in an environment marked by constraints. Some constraints relate to the actual process of production and marketing, and others are related to the quality requirements imposed by demand.
However, all these constraints are all triggers for the malfunction of market gardening sector. Faced with this, market gardeners adopt adaptive behavior to reduce and turn round these constraints. The choice of strategies by market gardeners depends on the perception of the constraints encountered and the resources available. Done on a sample of 81 market gardeners, this study enables to identify, based on an analysis of the technical context, the constraints of tomato and aubergine at Ruzizi Plain, and the strategies developed by market gardeners in the face of these constraints.
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Egerer, Monika, and Stacy M. Philpott. "‘Tidy’ and ‘messy’ management alters natural enemy communities and pest control in urban agroecosystems." PLOS ONE 17, no. 9 (September 22, 2022): e0274122. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274122.
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Agroecosystem management influences ecological interactions that underpin ecosystem services. In human-centered systems, people’s values and preferences influence management decisions. For example, aesthetic preferences for ‘tidy’ agroecosystems may remove vegetation complexity with potential negative impacts on beneficial associated biodiversity and ecosystem function. This may produce trade-offs in aesthetic- versus production-based management for ecosystem service provision. Yet, it is unclear how such preferences influence the ecology of small-scale urban agroecosystems, where aesthetic preferences for ‘tidiness’ are prominent among some gardener demographics. We used urban community gardens as a model system to experimentally test how aesthetic preferences for a ‘tidy garden’ versus a ‘messy garden’ influence insect pests, natural enemies, and pest control services. We manipulated gardens by mimicking a popular ‘tidy’ management practice–woodchip mulching–on the one hand, and simulating ‘messy’ gardens by adding ‘weedy’ plants to pathways on the other hand. Then, we measured for differences in natural enemy biodiversity (abundance, richness, community composition), and sentinel pest removal as a result of the tidy/messy manipulation. In addition, we measured vegetation and ground cover features of the garden system as measures of practices already in place. The tidy/messy manipulation did not significantly alter natural enemy or herbivore abundance within garden plots. The manipulation did, however, produce different compositions of natural enemy communities before and after the manipulation. Furthermore, the manipulation did affect short term gains and losses in predation services: the messy manipulation immediately lowered aphid pest removal compared to the tidy manipulation, while mulch already present in the system lowered Lepidoptera egg removal. Aesthetic preferences for ‘tidy’ green spaces often dominate urban landscapes. Yet, in urban food production systems, such aesthetic values and management preferences may create a fundamental tension in the provision of ecosystem services that support sustainable urban agriculture. Though human preferences may be hard to change, we suggest that gardeners allow some ‘messiness’ in their garden plots as a “lazy gardener” approach may promote particular natural enemy assemblages and may have no downsides to natural predation services.