Exercise 2 — The rise of urban gardening

THE RISE OF URBAN GARDENING Cities are not obviously good places to grow food. Space is limited, sunlight can be scarce and soil is rarely available in the quantities a gardener would like. ¹—ABCDEFG Across Europe and North America, growing numbers of city-dwellers are finding ways to raise vegetables, herbs and even small quantities of fruit on rooftops, balconies and abandoned patches of ground. The reasons for the trend are as varied as the gardeners themselves. Some people are motivated mainly by environmental concerns, arguing that food grown close to where it is eaten involves far less transport than the alternatives. Others focus on quality: a tomato grown on a balcony almost always tastes better than one that has spent a week in a lorry. ²—ABCDEFG For them, twenty minutes with a watering can at the end of a long day is a form of quiet mental therapy that no phone can offer. Practical solutions vary widely. Some cities have opened community gardens on unused land, with small plots leased to residents for a modest annual fee. ³—ABCDEFG A handful even allow keen gardeners to plant vegetables in tree pits and other tiny gaps in the pavement. The obstacles are real. In many cities, rooftops are not designed to hold the weight of soil, water and plants. ⁴—ABCDEFG Permission to use shared spaces can also be difficult to obtain, particularly in older residential buildings whose rules were written long before rooftop gardening was imagined. Technology is beginning to help. ⁵—ABCDEFG These use a fraction of the water of traditional gardening and can produce leafy greens in a fully indoor environment, making them suitable even for flats with no outdoor access at all. Whether all of this will grow into a significant source of urban food remains to be seen. ⁶—ABCDEFG Certainly, the movement has moved well beyond the small hobbyist gardens of a generation ago, and shows no sign of slowing down.