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This paper describes how community gardens generate social capital, and with what potential implications for the health of gardeners and their communities.

This analysis draws on data from focus groups with gardeners from four community gardening programs, two each in Boston and Lynn, MA. The participants represent a diverse sample of community gardeners (n=32).

We identify four mechanisms through which community gardening increases social capital, with implications for individual and community health: (1) building social networks; (2) providing opportunities for resource sharing and social support; (3) preserving cultural knowledge and practice in diaspora; and (4) reflecting and reinforcing collective efficacy. We also describe gardeners’ perspectives on gardening itself as a political activity.

While much of the literature on social capital and health in community gardens comes from in-depth studies of single, relatively homogenous gardens, this analysis draws on data from focus group interviews with a diverse group of participants who garden in varied neighborhood settings. In contrast to studies that have suggested that the social capital generated in community gardens does not extend beyond the group of individuals actively involved in gardening, our study identifies multiple community level benefits. Consequently, this paper lends support to recent calls to consider community gardening as strategy for amplifying community assets in support of public health.

School and community gardens have long histories grounded in social justice. Currently there are advocacy movements calling for gardening programs that foster academics and equity movements through nutrition education, neighborhood green spaces and beautification, and ecological sustainability. While the authors contributed personal experiences and useful resources for those interested in school and community gardening, the authors primarily investigated multiple theories that embraced critical and ecological pedagogies in neighborhoods, schools, urban communities. The democratic movements of food security, removal of food deserts, and socioeconomic sustainability using applicable gardening programs were the driving forces behind this chapter.

What does the intersection of food gardening and public librarianship look like? This chapter examines the question through a close analysis of three case studies that represent the spread of this phenomenon in the United States and Canada. This is a first step toward identifying areas for further research that will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how food gardening in and around public libraries addresses community-level health disparities. Although it is the case that food gardens and related programming are no strangers to public libraries, this topic has not received sustained attention in the LIS research literature. Public libraries have long been framed as key institutions in increasing consumer health literacy, but a more recent trend has seen them also framed as key institutions in promoting public and community health, particularly through the use of the public library space. This chapter examines food gardens at public libraries with this more expansive understanding of how public libraries address health disparities, by considering how this work occurs through novel partnerships and programs focused on transforming physical space in local communities. At the same time, public interest in food gardens parallels increased awareness of food in society; food and diet as key aspects of health; food justice activism; and a long history of community empowerment in the face of the proliferation of food deserts through myriad activities, including community food gardens. The authors consider how food gardening in public libraries parallels these trends.

In recent years, quite a number of local initiatives in Berlin have turned former empty lots or brownfields into publicly accessible open (green) spaces, some only temporarily, others on a more permanent basis. A few of those projects – often inspired by those created in New York City – can be identified as community gardens. Collective gardening, in the form of community gardens, is still a rarely known form of creating, shaping and using public space in Germany. However, for more than a decade Berlin has experienced an increase in the emergence of those kinds of grassroots initiatives. Although there are much older examples of open spaces created by and for residents, as discussed below, most of the existing gardens today have been created since the year 2000. The question is, what led to the recent rise in community gardening projects in Berlin? To answer this question, this chapter will examine the local governing context in Berlin in which the recent rise of community gardening has taken place and compare community gardens across a 20-year temporal divide.

The long interview is an intensive questioning of informants selected for their special knowledge, experiences and insights (or ignorance) of the topic under study. The objectives of the long interview include learning the thinking, feeling, and doing processes of the informants, including an understanding of the informants' worldviews of the topic under study in their own language. The chapter compares the strengths and weaknesses of the long interview to other primary data collection methods. The chapter describes a research application of the long interview in integrated marketing. The study was designed to (a) learn about the rich complexities in the lives of household gardeners buying and using seeds plants after responding to direct marketing appeals and (b) resolve two conflicting “theories-in-use” of how and why different customer types purchase products. These competing theories were proposed by different executives in the firm sponsoring the study. The development and critical testing of competing theories-in-use are described. This chapter reports a study to learn the behavior of five customer types. The results include thick descriptions of the processes of buying and using seeds and plants purchased through direct marketing offers and store visits.

School-aged children living in Montgomery and Troy located in Central Alabama are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. This study used a one-group pre-test–post-test research design to investigate if gardening and nutritional activities could be used as effective intervention to reduce levels of food insecurity among school-aged children. Statistical results found that several of the participants live in urban food deserts. Food insecurity scores were higher for participants in Montgomery compared to those in Troy, AL. The relationship between parental income, household size, and location were important indicators for measuring food insecurity among participants. Recommendations for future research include expanding the scope of study to different sites and climates with larger samples to enhance our understanding of gardening and nutritional educational activities on food insecurity among school-aged children.

This chapter describes a partnership model in which a university in the United States facilitated cultural exchanges between elementary students in US schools with students in international schools in Central and South America. Through the partnerships, faculty members at the university were able to facilitate opportunities for elementary students to communicate and share experiences through the use of virtual field trips (VFTs) and gardening projects. These exchanges were achieved through the use of multiple Web 2.0 tools that allowed interaction between students. They led to the engagement of students both locally and globally by providing them with a dynamic environment, in which they could explore, discover, experiment, and learn. Descriptions of the challenges faced, lessons learned, and recommendations for educators are also included.

The nonhuman world is under substantial threat from human activities and economies. Rewilding gardens and community action can build relationships of care with the nonhuman, restore habitat, connect people and land, and empower humans to work with and for the nonhuman. Stories about family relationships to land and through land, and creating a wild garden are used to explore place attachment, creating relationships of care through gardening, and purposeful rewilding of a garden; stories about participation in a community service organization examine how collective action can take rewilding ideas out into the larger community. By consciously creating care for the nonhuman and participating in rewilding, we can actively build ecological paths forward for ourselves and our nonhuman neighbors.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the invisible incarcerated women population who are convicted of a crime and serving a sentence in a residential correctional facility in the United States (US). Even though correctional populations have been declining in the past years, the extent of mass incarceration has been a significant public health concern even before the pandemic. Moreover, the global spread of COVID-19 continues to have devastating effects in all the world's societies, and it has exacerbated existing social inequalities within the US carceral complex.

We base our findings on data collection from two comparative clinical sociological garden interventions in a large Southeastern women's prison and a Midwestern residential community correctional facility for women. Both are residential correctional facilities for residents convicted of a crime. In contrast, in prison, women are serving longer-term sentences, and in the community corrections facility, women typically are housed for six months. We have developed and carried out educational garden programming and related research on both sites over the past two years and observe more closely the impact of COVID-19 on incarcerated women and their communities, which has aggravated the invisibility and marginalization of incarcerated women who suffered a lack of programming and insufficient research attention already before the pandemic.

We argue that prison gardens' educational programming has provided some respite from the hardships of the pandemic and is a promising avenue of correctional rehabilitation and programming that fosters sustainability, healthier nutrition, and mental health among participants.

Residential correctional facilities are distinctively sited to advance health equity and community health within a framework of sustainability, especially during a pandemic. We focus on two residential settings for convicted women serving a sentence in a prison or a residential community corrections facility that offers rehabilitation and educational programming. Women are an underserved population within the US carceral system, and it is thus essential to develop more programming and research for their benefit.

Starting from the middle of the 1990s, different initiatives linked to an “economy of solidarity” trend have emerged in the province of Quebec. Some of them, like the fair trade movement, seek to short-circuit global commodity chains; others, such as urban collective gardening and local exchange trading systems, rely almost entirely on local resources and contribute to local provisioning. Using empirical material from a study conducted in Quebec between 2001 and 2004, this article seeks to contribute to the understanding of marginal socioeconomic systems and practices in the context of globalization, anti-globalization, and alter-globalization movements.