Social Farming is a step forward in agriculture as it is developed specially in cities. It offers a broad line of benefits by connecting people and improving their lifestyle  

Social Farming offers people who avail of a range of services including mental health, learning/intellectual disability, and other aspects of care supports or social discrimination to engage and contribute by choice in the farming and social activities. (Social Farming Handbook, SoFAB).

The SoFAB proyect:
 

• Raised awareness in social farming.
• Stimulated an interest among families, health and social care services, voluntary organisations and potential users of services.

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) can be defined as the growing of plants and the raising of animals within and around cities. (FAO) 

 Not feasible for urban agriculture

This traditional technique consist on elevating the soil in linemarks and planting on top, furrows, letting the lower part, ridges, as sidewalks.

Advantages:

• Greater production.

Disadvantages:

• Disorder in the crops.
• Harder to work

It´s the Gaspar Caballero´s Methot

Charasteristics:
 

•  Dimensions 
•  Central Corridor with aromatical plants and flowers
•  2 cm of compost without mixing with the soil

Advantages:

•  Crop diversity
•  Easy to work within spaces

Inconvenientes:

•  Production is not as high as in extensive farming
   

Created by Mel Bartolomew

Charasteristics:

•  Dimensions: parcels of 30x30cm 
•  Crops are planted according to their space and watering needs

Advantages:

•  Easy to design
• Great production of some crops

Disadvantages:

• Overproduction in short seasons

Benefits:

• Improves soil conditions.
• Makes it easy to work.
• Soil less compacted as nobody steps in

It´s a great way to obtain farming space in places where there is no soil.

We can re-use a lot of thins as culture vessel.

Herbal plants enrich our soil and kitchens. We can concentrate a lot of herbal plants in a very small space by following the spiral shape.

Structure:

• Rainfed plants in the upper side
• Regular humidity and moderate heat in the middle side
• Plants demanding higher humidity are allocated in the lower side

Associating crops in the most favorable way depeding on:

• Space 
• Nutrients required
• Light and other resources

This three elements are basic in plant´s growth, so it is important their concentration in the soil we want to plant. 

Following the crop rotation system, we ensure that nutrients remain in the soil and proliferate in a natural way. 

With all of those 3 ingredients we can keep our garden free of plages due to the support they provide to other plants, stenghtening them.