ABSTRACT
Private and public gardens have always been an integral part of European cities – as spaces for urban food production, recreation and social interaction. Democracy and public awareness at local level are key components of collaborative planning and participatory spatial practices. Community building and social cohesion, human well-being, empowerment, cooperation, solidarity and multicultural integration are goals of community gardeners across Europe, and not only in gardens located in vulnerable city areas, or addressed to population in special needs. The kinds of actors involved in urban gardening initiatives in different countries are similar. A broad variety of actors and forms of gardening can be found reaching from illegal/extra-legal guerrilla gardening by unorganized groups to top-down, supported community gardens and hybrid forms of these. Urban gardening is creating a new field of debate among grassroots movements, local politics and formal planning. Traditional seeds come from Peliti and other organic farmers, and a seed bank has been set up with different Greek varieties.
