Urban gardening or urban growing refers to growing plants, herbs, fruit, or vegetables in more urban environments, instead of traditional rural farming locations. In the UK, 1 in 8 households do not have garden access. This highlights just how important it is to have these alternative types of growing methods [1].
This inclusive method to gardening means that growing can occur in window-boxes, on balconies, in back-yards, on rooftops, in addition to in the garden or on allotments.
The benefits to this are that it allows everyone to be able to take part in growing activities, which can optimise physical and mental health and wellbeing.
In addition to this, as depicted in the name ‘Urban Growing,’ it allows people living in cities and flats to still be able to carry out growing, despite sometimes limited access to land and greenspaces.
Furthermore, urban growing can help reduce the impact of climate change by reducing food miles, through the provision of hyper local food, as well as enhancing and increasing the amount of greenery that exists in city environments [2].
There are booming and blooming rooftop Urban Gardens around cities both in the UK and globally, including NU-Paris [3], Melbourne Skyfarm [4] and Brooklyn Grange [5], highlighting how large the scope and ease for growing in busy cities and towns can be.
So, if this is something you would be interested in learning more about and getting involved with, all you need is a small area to be able to house a planter or grow in the ground (15cm x 15cm).
Equally if you have access to a garden or allotment in an urban or semi-urban location and would like to learn more about the soil you grow your plants in, this project will provide you with insight about your soil quality through some simple activities as part of the project.
To get involved, please email equi-food@liverpool.ac.uk to register your interest and one of the team will get in touch to tell you more.
We look forward to hearing from you!
References
EQUI-Food 
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