Gardens in Barcelona: community and school gardens

Hello Agrohuerters, we continue to learn a little more about the urban gardens of other cities! This time, we enter the orchards in Barcelona.

We remember that there are many types of urban gardens depending on where they are or who grows them. The domestic orchards in the houses, the private leisure orchards (those that are rented) or municipal leisure orchards (those that are financed by municipalities, for example) stand out. There are also educational gardens, such as school gardens, and community urban gardens.

In previous articles, Elena already told us about her visits to the Can Cadena urban garden and the Sant Pere de Ribes ecological urban garden, both gardens in Barcelona. Today, we will show you some of the community gardens and school gardens in this beautiful Spanish city. We hope you like it.

Orchards in Barcelona

Community gardens in Barcelona

The tradition of community gardens in Barcelona dates back to the year 86. Thanks to the requests of a group of neighbors, the first garden managed by the Barcelona City Council began to function. This orchard was the «Hort de l’Avi», located near the Parc Güell. It is located on land that today forms part of the Municipal Network of Urban Gardens.

In addition, since November 2009 there has been a Network of Community Gardens, which has already held three meetings in which gardens from urban and peri-urban areas of the city have participated. Since that year, some orchards have disappeared (such as the Gracia orchard) and new ones have appeared. This Network of Community Gardens aims to connect different projects, exchange experiences, advice and seeds.

The «Can Masdeu» orchard is an example of this type of community orchard. Its history dates back to 2001. Despite the cold, the pools, patios and terraces of the valley began to revive. The people of that area began to cultivate on the old terraces of the farm (garlic, potatoes,…). From that moment on, the idea of ​​making joint gardens for the neighborhood was generated. In September 2002, the Can Masdeu community gardens were officially opened. Little by little, people got to know each other, organizing social activities and expanding the projects to this day.

Among the main crops, vegetables, seasonal flowers and aromatic or medicinal plants stand out. The latter have a very important function in the orchard since they allow to eliminate some pests by attracting or repelling parasitic insects towards them.

School gardens in Barcelona

In previous posts we talked about school gardens and how important they are for children’s lives. Schools also agree that we need more green spaces in cities and we are happy that our young generations see more and more usual care for plants and the environment.

According to the FAO:

School gardens are a very useful learning platform to improve education and child nutrition. In addition, they in turn promote the conservation of the environment and the social, physical and mental well-being of the entire educational community.

In Barcelona, ​​there are a wide variety of schools that join this initiative. Some of the school gardens that you can see on the map of the link are these that we are going to see next:

• Holy Family School

Location: Carrer Sardenya, 343 Gràcia / Camp d’en Grassot i Gràcia Nova 08025 – Barcelona

• Farigola of Vallcarca

Location: Carrer Sant Camil, 31 Gràcia / Vallcarca i els Penitents 08023 – Barcelona

• The Machinist School

Location: Carrer Sao Paulo 1-9 Sant Andreu / Bon Pastor 08030 – Barcelona

These types of urban gardens add great value to society. They allow people to interact, perform physical activity, exchange various experiences, advice or simply entertain themselves. In addition, it is a good initiative to coexist different generations, from the smallest of the house to the elderly.

So, if you have planned to make a trip, I hope that we have left you wanting to visit the greenest part of Barcelona! Finally, we encourage you to tell us about your experiences with orchards in Barcelona. Also, you can send us photos in the comments of the different orchards you have visited and tell us which ones you liked the most.

In future articles we will learn about new experiences in the orchards of other cities. What will be our next destination?