Allotment gardens are a traditional and popular form of urban gardening that enables urban residents to experience nature, gain social contact, and produce vegetables. Participation in traditional allotment gardens has the potential to impact the local environment and the health and food buying habits of the gardener, depending on the production philosophy and practice. This project seeks to understand the drivers for particular management concepts for urban gardening, and the motivations for, and barriers to, adopting particular gardening practices: especially organic gardening. On this basis, strategies for supporting organic gardening will be developed.
The project will be carried out in four Swiss cities: Basel, Lausanne, Luzern, and St. Gallen. It is based on four modules: