Abstract
The home garden is a unique human-nature interspace that accommodates a diverse spectrum of plant species and provides multiple services to households. One of the most important roles of home gardens is to shelter the agricultural plant diversity that provides for diverse and healthy nutrition, especially in rural communities. While tropical home gardens have received wide recognition due to their provisional function for the local communities, temperate and especially European home gardens have been discussed less frequently as a source of subsistence. The main objectives of the current study were to document plant species grown in Bulgarian rural home gardens and to explore related local knowledge and cultural practices that influence food plant diversity, its selection and preservation. Field work was focused on settlements situated in eight provinces in South and North-West Bulgaria. Participants representing 65 home gardens were approached through semi-structured interviews. Home gardens were found to harbor 145 cultivated and semi-cultivated plant taxa, used as food, medicinal and aromatic plants and as animal fodder. Members of the Rosaceae family were most numerous. The largest part of the garden area was occupied by vegetable crops of Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae. In 63.1% of the studied households, the food growing area comprised more than 2/3 of the total size of the garden. Most preferred crops reflected the social and cultural importance of food self-provisioning, especially in the rural areas. The provisional role of the home gardens in regard to preparation of traditional foods and the driving forces for seed saving are discussed.
Highlights
Through the ages, humans have invested considerable efforts and resources to construct and maintain a favorable environment for growing and breeding crops and ornamental species so as to foster a diverse spectrum of provisions and services delivered by plants [1,2,3]
Home gardens sized over 100 square meters prevailed in both lowland (≤300 m above sea level, coded hereafter with lowland settlements (LL)) and semi-mountainous and mountainous settlements (>300 m a.s.l., coded hereafter with SMM), at 93.8% and 57.6%, respectively
The current paper provides evidence for the crop diversity of home gardens in LL and SMM regions of Bulgaria, the significance of home garden for the self-provisioning of food in rural areas, and their function as a space for biocultural interactions and transmission of local traditional knowledge
Summary
Humans have invested considerable efforts and resources to construct and maintain a favorable environment for growing and breeding crops and ornamental species so as to foster a diverse spectrum of provisions and services delivered by plants [1,2,3]. A broad variety of plants used as food are reported in a number of studies dedicated to the past and present of the cultivation of edible species in European home gardens [13,14,15,16,17]. Important topics for researchers of European home gardens have been the loss of agricultural diversity, preservation of biocultural heritage and the role of gardening in the distribution of invasive plant species [5,17,20,21,22,23]. With the bloom of urban gardening, activated by sustainability objectives and more recently by the food import shortages imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a growing body of evidence showing that (home) gardening in the industrialized societies (namely in Continental Europe, Britain and North America) is a vital activity that could alleviate family/local food insecurity and contribute to the mental health and subjective wellbeing of those involved in it [8,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
