Green oases and poor gardens Swiss allotment gardens celebrate their 100th anniversary
The Swiss Family Gardeners' Association is celebrating its 100th anniversary in Carouge GE on Saturday. Poor gardens became green oases for the environment, food and community.
14.06.2025, 10:51
14.06.2025, 11:18
SDA
The Swiss federation for allotment gardens is celebrating its 100th anniversary in Carouge GE on Saturday. There will be 14 communes from the host canton of Geneva and around 200 delegates from gardeners all over Switzerland.
For many families, family gardens are an important resource for healthy, fresh produce grown in harmony with nature, according to the Swiss Family Gardeners Association (SFGV). In growing cities, the green oases make an important contribution to combating heat islands and air pollution.
They also facilitate the inclusion of people with a migration background and strengthen the community thanks to mutual support and solidarity. According to the SFGV, allotment gardens are meeting a growing need, as evidenced by the increasingly long waiting lists for plots.
In the early days: gardens against poverty
Allotment gardens were founded at national level in 1925 under the name "Schweizerischer Kleingärtnerverband" by the cantonal federations of Geneva, Lausanne, Basel and Zurich. The aim was to protect the plots against the threat of land takeovers and to represent the interests of the tenants vis-à-vis the authorities, according to the SFGV.
Towns and municipalities made the sites permanently available and cooperatives managed the garden plots. Near-natural garden development was particularly encouraged after the allotment gardens were recognized as contaminated areas.
However, the history of allotment gardens began at the beginning of the 19th century. The so-called poor people's gardens were created on the properties of benevolent people. The aim was to alleviate poverty. Homeworker families were just as dependent on such self-sufficiency as factory workers were later.
