Mobile Urban Gardens in Upcycled Parcels
June 28, 2010 by Robin Plaskoff Horton
Welcome the itinerant gardener, not the one who travels from plot to plot, but the one whose community gardens travel from spot to spot. We’ve written about mobile gardens before, but these self-contained gardens go beyond being simply plant-growing mobile allotments, they are often constructed using reclaimed and upcycled items like rail cars, buses, trucks, bikes, and even an airplane.
In addition to producing fresh produce and flowers, these portable spreads also cultivate communities, bringing residents together to sow and harvest where they would not normally have the space or opportunity to do so.
One of these gardeners on the move is Annechien Meier, a Dutch environmentalist, artist, and gardener from The Hague, whose energy-free community garden, made up of a wooden platform on rubber wheels can be towed manually and parked anywhere.
Meier hopes to stimulate curiosity, confront people about the environment and ultimately engage them in doing something constructive. She has employed an number of specially manufactured and reclaimed objects in her quest to bring awareness to people’s impact on the environment.
Housed in a pond at the Norbotten Museum during the northern Sweden Lulea Summer Biennial, Meier worked with the theme of technology and nature to create Mobile Allotment Garden II, upcycling a city bus which she outfitted with a rooftop community garden.
Meier’s vegetable garden was organized into squares and straight lines–in homage to limits imposed by Dutch neighborhood allotment laws.
For the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale in South Korea, Meier planted her garden on the wings of an airplane. The idea, she says, began literally as a dream: flying a vegetable garden on the most beautiful plane she could imagine. Visitors can sit in the cockpit.
Meier recounts that she found it almost impossible to locate a plane. The project took on a bit of political charge: in South Korea, aviation, she observed, is in the hands of the army, and there is still leftover fear from the war with North Korea. Meier’s art project attempted to portray the transformation of war into peace: a former battle vehicle turned into a peaceful vegetable garden.
Apart from the installations of artists and environmentalists, there are the gardens of the anonymous horticulturists, like this one spotted in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where a “bumper” crop of tomatoes and peppers were growing in a greenhouse on the back of his truck.
Now, if only they delivered!
Hat tip to dornob and cascoprojects.
Category: Community Gardens, Container Gardening, Edible Landscaping, Green & Sustainable, Green Roofs, Greening, Hydroponics, Raised Beds, Reclaimed & Recycled, Rooftop Gardens, Urban Agriculture
Tags: mobile allotments, mobile community gardens, urban mobile gardens
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What an inspiring post! Makes me want to run out and build a mobile garden and take it to schools, like the bookmobile, but with veggies.
— June 28, 2010 @ 11:45
Helen, that’s a fantastic idea!
— June 28, 2010 @ 15:14
Yeah! I’ve been having thoughts along the same lines. Blogged in May about “shovel-ready greenhouses (pushcart style and/or hitchable to a bicycle) being installed in other underused spaces throughout the city — for food, for wildlife habitat, for viewing.” Anyone interested in a collaboration?
— June 28, 2010 @ 16:55
Saturday Finds « An Artist's Journal Pingback said:
[…] wonderfully creative mobile gardens feed both my gardening and artistic fantasies. I love the suggestion in the blog’s comments […]
— July 3, 2010 @ 23:56
What a wonderful creative solution for making fresh vegetables available everywhere on the planet. May the Gods bless and keep you! Art Saves Lives! Imagine and Live in Peace, Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart
— July 4, 2010 @ 22:27
Mobile Gardening… #genius A whole new concept to buying fresh.
— July 7, 2010 @ 21:24
Stopping to Smell the Flowers 07.08.09 by Garden Grunt Pingback said:
[…] I’m not sure how this works….if it’s practical at all….but the concept itself is pretty cool. Imagine a mobile garden….and it shall appear. […]
— July 8, 2010 @ 08:05
Multifunctional Mobile Outdoor Seating | Urban Gardens | Unlimited Thinking For Limited Spaces Pingback said:
[…] folded, the Fido is easy to transport. Once opened, it becomes a multifunctional piece: either a flat blanket or, by folding back and […]
— January 5, 2011 @ 14:24
Women Landscape Architects Gaining Ground | Urban Gardens | Unlimited Thinking For Limited Spaces Pingback said:
[…] shaping our lives, transforming our cities, and nourishing the environment, landscape architecture, as the film shows, is more than the “simple arrangement of plants […]
— January 8, 2011 @ 15:02
Friday Fun: Garden Buses | TheCityFix.com Pingback said:
[…] Roots is the latest in a series of roving or nomadic argicultural projects developed by urban dwellers. For example, New York City agriculturalists can pluck weeds […]
— February 11, 2011 @ 16:22
Green Walls – Green Busses | Plantworks Inc Pingback said:
[…] Roots joins the ranks of mobile gardens planted on trucks, trains, and other roving sites. Cosio explains his project as an exercise in […]
— June 11, 2011 @ 13:42
In Berlin’s Kreuzberg district there is a luscious, self-sustained urban garden that is social, ecological and also mobile. Prinzessinnengarten is a not-for-profit open organic garden dedicated to engage people and exchange knowledge and work, while promoting sustainable living. The garden was started as a pilot project in the summer of 2009 by Nomadic Green, on a site that had been a wasteland for over half a century; now, it has been transformed into a paradise for growing vegetables within the multicultural German capital.
— March 10, 2012 @ 02:45
La quasi-totalité de ce que vous pointez arrive à être étonnamment précis et qui me fait demander pourquoi je n’avais pas examiné cette question dans cette lumière précédemment. Cette pièce fait vraiment particulier allumer la lumière pour moi autant que ce sujet particulier va.
— May 5, 2012 @ 02:13
How to Make a Mobile Garden Planted in Shopping Carts | Urban Gardens Pingback said:
[…] Garden is a discarded shopping cart, suitcase, baby carriage, even a commode, retrofitted into a mobile edible garden for the purpose of engaging the public in debates about important issues such as recycling, food […]
— July 5, 2012 @ 12:14
Gardens Flourish on Top of City Busses | Urban Gardens Pingback said:
[…] Roots joins the ranks of mobile gardens planted on trucks, trains, and other roving sites. Cosio explains his project as an exercise in […]
— July 3, 2013 @ 22:08
wat are the construction material required?? if wana start gardening on the roof of bus??
— September 1, 2013 @ 13:37
Faria, the post describes the materials Marc uses to build the rooftop garden. I’m sure he will be happy to share his knowledge with you as he hopes to spread the idea throughout the world.
— September 21, 2013 @ 09:57
Mobile Garden "Thrones" Reign in Paris - Urban Gardens Pingback said:
[…] atop rolling mobile gardens adorned with plants, insect hotels, branches, shells and more, a group of spirited young women and […]
— March 27, 2015 @ 16:24
Ten Cool and Creative Upcycling Ideas Pingback said:
[…] […]
— April 28, 2015 @ 12:09
13 Mobile Gardens To Move You Pingback said:
[…] Garden is a discarded shopping cart, suitcase, baby carriage, even a commode, retrofitted into a mobile edible garden for the purpose of engaging the public in debates about important issues such as recycling, food […]
— May 1, 2015 @ 12:47
Gardens Flourish on Top of City Busses - Urban Gardens Pingback said:
[…] Roots joins the ranks of mobile gardens planted on trucks, trains, and other roving sites. Cosio explains his project as an exercise in […]
— July 5, 2022 @ 08:33