The handbook brings together academic research, experience from Tallinn and discussions from the EDENTallinn expert seminar held on 19 September 2026. In addition to the main text, the publication includes an extensive glossary that helps clarify concepts related to urban gardening, food security and crisis preparedness, and avoids the confusion that can arise when terms with different meanings are used interchangeably.

“We wanted to produce a handbook that is as practical as possible – one that does not promise more from community gardens than they can realistically deliver, while at the same time recognising their considerable potential. A garden is not simply a place where food grows. It can also be a place where skills, relationships, knowledge and people’s willingness to take action can grow,” said Anne-May Nagel, co-founder of the Crisis Research Centre and project manager of EDENTallinn.

Why discuss urban gardening in the context of crisis preparedness?

The day-to-day functioning of cities depends on many systems and supply chains that often go largely unnoticed under normal circumstances. Food reaches shops, water comes from the tap, and most essential goods and services remain continuously available. During a disruption, however, these dependencies quickly become visible. The starting point of the EDENTallinn project was not the idea that a city should begin feeding itself through community gardens. Quite the opposite: one of the central questions was what community and educational gardens can realistically contribute, and where the limits of their potential lie.

“We are not suggesting that community gardens could replace Tallinn’s food supply in a crisis. The more interesting question is what capacity already exists in these places before a crisis occurs – who knows how to grow food, who knows the local area, who can bring people together, and how this knowledge can be retained and passed on,” Nagel explained.

Among other topics, the handbook examines why a community garden, an educational garden and an urban farm are not the same thing; how food availability, food access and food security differ; how seasonality affects what gardens can do; and why the mere existence of a garden does not automatically amount to crisis preparedness. At the same time, this is neither a gardening manual nor a crisis-response guide. The handbook is intended above all to help communities, gardening organisers, educational institutions and local decision-makers ask more precise questions and take a more systematic view of the resources already available.