Enough to Feed Ourselves!—Food Plants in Bulgarian Rural Home Gardens

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.

Lamiaceae Plants in Bulgarian Rural Livelihoods—Diversity, Utilization, and Traditional Knowledge

“…In the current study, two species, namely M. spicata and S. hortensis, were almost compulsorily present in the home hardens, grown in 98% and 74% of the studied gardens, respectively. Although Lamiaceae taxa were grown in limited quantities in Bulgarian home gardens, it is noteworthy to mention that their occurrence was comparable with many of the garden vegetables that were found to be main crops in cultivation [45,57]. Even some Lamiaceae taxa, which are not so popular as culinary herbs in Bulgaria (e.g., O. basilicum, R. officinalis), were also found more frequently cultivated in the Bulgarian home gardens than in other European countries [29,48,58,59].…”

“…Plant diversity in European home gardens, and especially in those of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, remains understudied in comparison to home gardens and homesteads in the tropics, mostly due to the specific socio-economic impact of the latter [30][31][32][33]. Bulgarian rural home gardens, which currently range in size between several square meters and half a hectare, were found to provide substantially for the family sustenance, harboring a relatively large number of annual and perennial crop species [45]. Lamiaceae was found to be the second most represented plant family in Bulgarian rural home gardens, after Rosaceae, the latter being represented mainly by singular trees and shrubs cultivated for their fruits or grown as ornamentals [45].…”

“…Bulgarian rural home gardens, which currently range in size between several square meters and half a hectare, were found to provide substantially for the family sustenance, harboring a relatively large number of annual and perennial crop species [45]. Lamiaceae was found to be the second most represented plant family in Bulgarian rural home gardens, after Rosaceae, the latter being represented mainly by singular trees and shrubs cultivated for their fruits or grown as ornamentals [45]. On the contrary, in home gardens across Europe and the East Mediterranean, members of Lamiaceae were found more scarcely [46][47][48].…”

A Comparison of Biophysical Conditions Between Sundanese Migrant and Non-Migrant Pekarangans in Indonesia

“…Plants with other functions were more commonly found in migrant pekarangans. Plants with other functions are plants that function other than for food (Arifin et al, 1998), such as land boundary marker plants (Cordyline fruticose L. and Dracaena fragrans L.) (Werdiningsih, 2007) and fodder plants (Pennisetum purpureum), which were often found in rural pekarangans Schumach (Ivanova et al, 2021).…”

Wild Edible Plants: A Challenge for Future Diet and Health

“…This paper provides a significant contribution to the knowledge of the wealth of uses of edible vascular plants in the whole of Italy, especially in light of their potential for cultural enhancement. Food plants in rural home gardens were also examined [5]; such knowledge is less extensively investigated in Europe, while it receives more attention in tropical areas. Some studies have focused on divergences in ethnobotanical and ecological knowledge in areas characterized by different linguistic communities or by past political borders, geographical, and cultural drivers [6].…”