GARDEN CITY

What know-how will shape the future? What is driving the boom in self-managed food production spaces in the city? Why now? What else is happening in urban gardens? What can we learn in them?

Garden City is a programme of jointly-designed training capsules that outline the acquired knowledge and experiences being implemented in community gardens in Madrid. Garden City aims to provide an overview of the subject via exchanges and workshops that fuse the City-School project training methods with the work dynamics found in spaces affiliated with the Urban Community Garden Network of Madrid. The programme also aims to rethink and redesign urban planning so that it is contemplated via an approach that is more pedagogical in nature than the hegemonic strategies of the approach traditionally taken. It also aims to enable the objects and studies developed in the workshops to improve and provide an infrastructure for the spaces that adopt them.

Edible Wild Plants 
Thursday 21 April at 3.30pm in CIEA Retiro 
Led by Luciano Labajos
 
Are weeds that grow on cultivated land wild plants? Are they really weeds? Do they have any positive effects? How do I remove them and how do I tend to them?

Wild plants are plants that grow spontaneously in nature without human intervention. Can any vacant lot in the city be declared a National Park? This workshop on wild plants is useful as a first step towards identifying them. It highlights the value of the wild species that crop up in our gardens, vacant lots, property boundaries and green areas, familiarising us with them and how we can try to make use of their culinary properties. It provides an introduction to the world of sorrel, fennel, rocket, thistle, bladder campion, purslane, etc. 

Composting in urban gardens
Saturday 23 April at 11h in El Huerto de la Cornisa
Led by Raúl Urquiaga

Millions of bacteria work together in gardens every day with one mission: to decompose organic waste to make it an ideal and nourishing environment for soil and plants. It’s a matter of life and death, and they perform their task tirelessly. Alongside the bacteria, hundreds of insects work to finish the task and to achieve the black gold of any garden: compost. Microorganisms and invertebrates want urban gardeners to learn to do things well to make their task easier. Health and good composting. 

Tending and citizens
Thursday 19 in CIEA Retiro with Luciano Labajos, and Saturday 21 May (site to be determined)

In an organic garden, tending to the soil and plants is crucial. Healthy soil will foster healthy plants; with simple techniques to prevent infestations and diseases and avoid invasion by so-called weeds. But who says weeds are bad? Some of them have properties that benefit our gardens (nourishment, aesthetics, health, etc.). We will also discover which plants help others to grow and even restore them to health.