Urban farming 3

URBAN FARMING
Garden cities, family house gardens

The Garden City concept.
• Created by Ebenezer Howard in 1898.

Baghdad, round city
• The original plan of Baghdad. An idealistic city, the inner palm trees
can be clearly seen, those probably would have been also fruit
producers (date palms).

The role of contemporary garden cities
• Garden city does not mean currently autonomous settlements.
• They are practically districts of a city, sometimes members of an
agglomeration zone.
• Being only a district, a present day garden city usually do not have all
necessary elements of a functioning settlement.
• There is neither industrial zone nor even city centre.
• These districts usually consist of dwellings, mostly dwellings in case of
so called „sleeping settlements” the rate of dwellings can be almost
100%.
• Moreover , the unit of these districts is the family house with garden.
• Thus, mostly detached, or semi-detached houses occur. Sometimes
there can be seen terrace houses.
• Due to the low percentage of buiding-in and the necessary huge area,
these garden cities are the most suitable for urban farming.

A garden city in present days
• Agriculture is based on crop production till the Agrucultural Revolution (for
10000 years).
• The main crops

Family house gardens
• The unit of a garden city is the family house with its garden.
• These gardens are originally for recreation, although the presence of
minor farming is ordinary (i.e. ornamental trees with edible fruits, like
cherry trees, walnuts, hazelnuts etc.)
• In case of new citizens, who originated from villages, the usage of the
garden for food product is quite frequent.
• In case of traditional village gardens, or yards, the vegetables, the
herbs and most of the fruits were produced in gardens, which
were/are closely connected with the dwelling houses and the
ordinary size of these yards were usually the same size of present day
family house gardens.
• Thus, even traditional vegetable herb and fruit production is possible
in family house gardens.

A family house garden
10000 years).
• The main crops

• Ordinary family house gardens are used to consisting trees,
shrubs/hedges, perennial beds, lawn/grass and sometimes annuals.
• Moreover there occur swimming pools, garden lakes, plants in pots,
green roofs, trellis-works.
• All of these typical garden elements has its equivalent from the point
of view of food production.
• Only two kind of food production can not be made effectively in case
of family house gardens: crop production and traditional stock-
farming.
• In case of greater gardens (around the 1 hectare size, typical in some
hungarian villages) even crop production and stock farming
(together) can be viable.
• In case of ordinary family house gardens, where the ground size of
the garden is comparable with the size of the garden, this two is
almost impossible, but everything else (including aquaponic and
mushroom farming) is viable.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Garden tree

10000 years).
• The main crops
Fruit production in garden (cherry tree).

10000 years).
• The main crops
Ornamental shrubs

10000 years).
• The main crops
Fruit production in garden (hazelnut).

10000 years).
• The main crops
Hedge

10000 years).
• The main crops
Fruit production in garden (redcurrant).

• There are many kind of ornamental trees, which have edible fruits
(i. e. ornamental apples, cherries, european and american hazelnuts,
turkish hazelnut).
• There are a lot of fruit trees, wich have remarkably ornamental value,
and can be cultivated in family trees garden (i. e. walnuts, pecan,
hazelnuts, chestnut, almond, plum, cherries, apricot, tart cherry).
• These usually do not need any chemicals, especially if they are lonely
surrounded by other kind of trees (greater diversity, greater
resistance against pests, fungus and plant diseases).
• Furthermore, there are a lot of fruit producing shrubs (i.e. redcurrant,
cranberries, cornel-berry, quince, medlar , cloudberry etc.), which
can be optimally used instead of other ornamental shrubs and
hedges.
• Basically, only an other set of plants (instead of current purely
ornamental types) is necessary to turn our garden a small fruit
producing plantation.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Annual flower bed.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Vegetable garden.

Annual plants
• A vegetable bed can have also remarkable ornamental value (flowers,
fruits, leaves).
• Despite, ordinary annual flower beds have only ornamental value
(these are not customary in private gardens).
• From the point of view of lifecycle traditonal crops (barley, wheat,
rice, corn, sorghum) are annual plants.
• As it was previously mentioned the cultivation of them in garden
cities is not effective.
• Nevertheless, such crops among ideal circumstances (which can be
much easily provided in a private garden) can produce half kilogramm
crop per square meter. This means that on 100 square metres can be
produced 50 kilogramms of crop. In case of greater gardens a family
can produce their own annual crop supply.
• In case of garden lakes the surrounding coastal plants can be simply
rice , which has momentous ornamental value in many seasons.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Small rice fields.

Perennial plants
• Quite customary in case of family house gardens (more common than
annual flower beds).
• Similarly to annuals, the ornamental value is the only attribute that
matters in case of contemporary gardens.
• It is quite strange that originally the perennials were no ornamental
plants, but herb plant beds in the Medieval Age.
• There are a lot of perennials, which can be used as food, or herb and
have great ornamental value (i.e. lavender, salvia, rosemary etc.).
• Food, herb, tea, plants for spice production can be all produced in
perennial beds or under deep shades of trees (i. e. bear’s garlic).
• Their cultivation in case of ordinary agriculture requires relatively
small area, thus they can be very effectively produced in small
gardens (garden cities).
• The best example is saffron (Crocus sativus). It requires a lot of
human work, but only a garden size area.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Lavander

10000 years).
• The main crops
Salvia

10000 years).
• The main crops
Rosemary

10000 years).
• The main crops
Saffron I.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Saffron garden (Udaipur Fort, India).

Trellis works
• There are a lot of rambling plants, which require retaining structures.
• A lot of ornamental is used in current landscape design (i. e. ivy
species, fox grape species, chinese wisteria etc.)
• There are some of them, which are extremely important in traditional
agriculture, just like grape.
• Different grape species and other kind of fruit producing rambling
plants (including annuals like bean and arborescents like actinidia
species) are very suitable for food production in garden cities.
• Grape itself is not only the raw material of vine (it is also a food itself,
source of syrup, grape sugar, dried currant).
• Even pear can be cultivated similary to rambling plants.
• In family house gardens the usage of rambling plants on appropriate
retaining structure can be very useful as a green wall for the building
itself, which reduce its energy demand both in summer (shading) and
in winter (wind protection, heat isolation air layer creation).

10000 years).
• The main crops
Spaliers.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Chinese wisteria.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Actinidia chinesis.

10000 years).
• The main crops
Grape plantation

A possible way of uniting retaining
structure with planting containers
• Rambling plants can be planted into these structures in the tree
nurseries, and when they reach full covering, the structure can be
transported to the appropriate building.

Application on buildings
• Openings are essential on green walls (for doors, windows etc.). This
can be solved by using a modular retaining wall with a relatively
dense rasterized structure. The unnecessary elements can be easily
removed, and the rambling plants can be pruned. Luckily, all lianas
bear pruning very well (in the temperate zone under continental
climate).

Flexibility
• On this way even a whole detached house can be covered by such a
retaining structure on an appropriate way and can be covered by the
desired plant (grape or actinidia/kiwi).

Conclusions
• The garden cities are the most suitable for traditional food
production among urban circumstances.
• Only a new set of plants (fruit trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals) are
necessary to produce great amount of food by keeping the
ornamental values of the garden.
• The walls (retaining walls, fences and the walls of the house itself)
can be also used up for food production by using the appropriate
plant cultivation methods (spaliers, retaining structures for rambling
plantswith edible fruits).
• The usage of green roof is not so momentous due to the usage of flat
roofs is quite rare in case of garden cities.
• In some certain cases crop production can be also a viable way.
• Mushroom /fungus farming and aquaponics are also appropriate
methods in case of garden cities, although these do not require the
garden itself.

Urban farming 3

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