Ethnobotanical Wealth of Home Gardens

The use of ethnomedicinal plants of home gardens has played an important role in treating minor illnesses related to physical and psychological wellbeing among rural folks. Local healers often use plants from their home garden or nearby forest. In this chapter, the traditional uses of medicinal plants using various tools with sample data have been used to facilitate ethnobotanical research on home gardens. Samples measuring the relative importance of species through quantitative analysis are tabulated. These tools, if applied during in-situ data collection, would help generate reliable information on characteristics of home gardens and medicinal plants. Conservation of medicinal plants from the perspective of home gardening is important. To document how medicinal plants are used to treat different diseases, their use value and ethical considerations would be significant for bioprospecting of medicinal plants and protecting intellectual right of the associated traditional knowledge.

Exploring Vhavenda Indigenous Food Practices and Knowledge Contributions to Food (in)security

This chapter considers VhaVenda indigenous knowledge about foods, its production, and its consumption as a way of exploring indigenous-based solutions to food insecurity. External and internal factors contributing to food insecurity are discussed, beginning with an overview of the current state of food insecurity globally and then locally. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security levels in both urban and rural settings within a single population. Specific attention is given to the rural setting of Thohoyandou Venda, drawing attention to its challenges and solution-possibilities with particular focus on subsistence farming and home gardening as aspects in VhaVenda culture. Finally, the authors provide a catalogue of indigenous food sources and agricultural practices thereby exploring local knowledge as a possible mechanism to combat food insecurity in the contemporary period.

The Indigenous Roles of Women in Household Food Security in Limpopo Province

The chapter describes women's roles in home-gardening to ensure household food security in a rural community in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Focus group discussions confirmed the women continue to produce indigenous crops as part of their cultural obligations to provide for household food security. This implies that the women are capable of maintaining the health and welfare of their households by ensuring food availability, accessibility, and utilization, which are important elements of food security. The study has implications for ending hunger and malnutrition as food is produced and preserved for future consumption. The food and preservation practices adopted by the women in the study could be incorporated into climate change mitigation and adaptation policies to address the challenge of poverty and malnutrition as per the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 2.

Establishment of Organic Terrace Garden and Cultivation of Nutritious Vegetables

In urban areas garden spaces are reduced in size everyday due to human impact on ecosystem. People living in urban and peri-urban areas don’t have enough space for kitchen gardening or home gardening. The only places that one can grow their own vegetables are terraces and balcony. The main aim of this study is to create awareness on all aspects of growing own organic vegetables and establishment of organic terrace garden. For the establishment of organic terrace garden, space was selected in the department of Botany, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore. The area was covered by using green shade nets. Different sizes of grow bags were selected for the cultivation of vegetables, fruits, greens and medicinal plants. The organic fertilizers and manures like vermicompost, Farm Yard Manure, panchagavya, NPK consortium were used. Neem oil was used to control the pests. Drip irrigation setup was placed in the terrace garden for irrigating the plants. The ornamental plants were planted in the hanging pots and plastic pots to beautify the environment. Students are motivated and trained for the establishment of organic terrace garden and cultivation of vegetables.

Ecological Embeddedness in the Maya Built Environment: Inspiration for Contemporary Cities

Cities nowadays are the most significant source of environmental degradation threatening local and global ecosystems. Interestingly, many ancient settlements present excellent lessons and inspiration for addressing our current urban predicaments, given their environmental stewardship. This research explores how the ecologically embedded settlement patterns, building configurations, urban agriculture and home gardening, and water conservation of the Maya-built environment can offer insights about mitigating contemporary urban sustainability challenges. Mayans’ respect for nature not only guaranteed sustainable habitats but also engendered one of the most remarkable civilizations in a region that did not offer generous support for human accommodation. The Mayan world view promoted the idea of one spirit dwelling in all humans and other-than-human entities in an environment, making everything sacred and kin to everything else. The regional climate was kept under control by protecting the vegetation that also provided other ecological benefits. Land use was mixed, and residences were constructed with native and recyclable materials utilizing natural light and ventilation. The Mayan civilization inspires us to manage and protect plants, not cut them down; conserve water, not waste it; listen to the environmental feedback, not reject it; and, most importantly, it begs us to embrace nature as our own mother, not disown it as something dispensable. These principles have significant implications on urban land-use planning and policies today.

Impact of home garden interventions on household access to vegetables for nutrition security in kavreplanchok district of Nepal

The study was conducted during 2020-2021 to identify the contribution of home garden interventions towards household access to vegetables amidst COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal. Kavreplanchok district was the selected site of study wherein checklist, focus group discussion and field observation were the major data collection methods. Women in the treatment group participated in home gardening orientation and vegetable gardening activities, however, only data collection was done in the control group. Post-intervention data showed 46% households in treatment group practiced improved organic vegetable gardening technologies as compared to 10.67% in control. Furthermore, annual vegetable requirement met from home garden was 62% in treatment group, while it was only 36 % in control group. Similarly, the knowledge on nutrition, home gardening technology and proper handling of vegetables has increased significantly.

Home Garden; an Approach for Household Food Security and Uplifting the Status of Rural Women: A Case Study of Saptari, Nepal

Food security is one of the major global challenges of the twenty-first century. World population is expected to increase by one-third, between 2009 and 2050, and in Asia, crop yield is estimated to decline by 5 to 30% from 2050 onwards compared to 1990. It is high time to seek alternatives that can increase production utilizing existing resources ensuring food security. A home garden can be a viable and sustainable alternative in this regard; nevertheless, it is often neglected. Thus, this study aims to understand the role of the home garden in maintaining household food security and enhancing rural women’s status in Nepal. Two villages of Bishnupur rural municipality, namely, Bajitpur and Musharniya were selected as study sites. 78.6% of households in Bajitpur and 68.4% households in Musharniya were found to have a home garden where crops and livestock were organized in an integrated way. The home garden was found to maintain household food security, ensure food availability for most of the seasons, access of household members to food, its utilization, and stability in production. Furthermore, 66.67% and 58.33% of women sold surplus home garden products in Bajitpur and Musharniya respectively. This signifies the role of home gardening activities in uplifting the social and economic status and, farming knowledge of rural women in both villages. However, there is a lack of extension facilities and subsidies for the home garden to encourage farmers. Therefore, different models of home gardens should be developed and disseminated, prioritizing the integration of the scientific farming system with traditional knowledge for sustainable adoption of the home garden in Nepal.

Trend Analysis of Grow-Your-Own Using Social Network Analysis: Focusing on Hashtags on Instagram

Background and objective: The prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on mental health, which has emerged as a major public health issue around the world. This study aimed to analyze trends and network structure of ‘grow-your-own (GYO)’ through Instagram, one of the most influential social media platforms, to encourage and sustain home gardening activities for promotion of emotional support and physical health. Methods: A total of 6,388 posts including keyword hashtags ‘#gyo’ and ‘#growyourown’ on Instagram from June 13, 2020 to April 13, 2021 were collected. Word embedding was performed using Word2Vec library, and 7 clusters were identified with K-means clustering: GYO, garden and gardening, allotment, kitchen garden, sustainability, urban gardening, etc. Moreover, we conducted social network analysis to determine the centrality of related words and visualized the results using Gephi 0.9.2. Results: The analysis showed that various combinations of words, such as #growourrownfood, #growourrownveggies, and #growwhatyoueat revealed preference and interest of users in GYO, and appeared to encourage their activities on Instagram. In particular, #gardeningtips, #greenfingers, #goodlife, #gardeninglife, #gardensofinstagram were found to express positive emotions and pride as a gardener by sharing their daily gardening lives. Users were participating in urban gardening through #allotment, #raisedbeds, #kitchengarden and we could identify trends toward self-sufficiency and sustainable living. Conclusion: Based on these findings, it is expected that the trend data of GYO, which is a form of urban gardening, can be used as the basic data to establish urban gardening plans considering each characteristic, such as the emotions and identity of participants as well as their dispositions.