Ornamental vegetable gardens in a family system

Abstract

Ornamental vegetable gardens have a long history on the European continent. The design of the gardens is different due to influences originated from customs and traditions, which represent important elements in their composition and are reflected in the vegetable growing methods and species used. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the opportunities that these gardens have and to satisfy the nutritional and aesthetic needs of a family.To reach the aim and proposed objectives a series of experiments and case studies were conducted. By combining the owners underlined nutritional needs from our previous studies and the obtained results from our experiments, applicable solutions were created for family vegetable gardens.From a therapeutic pointof view this type of landscape design helps maintain cultural identity, encouraging communication and socialization between members of a community.The obtained results show that the studied family gardens situated in urban areas have a positive influenceon the sustainability of the community maintaining a “heathy life style” for its inhabitants.