Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits, and herbs, are grown for consumption, for use as dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use.
Raised-bed gardening is a form of gardening in which the soil is raised above ground level and usually enclosed in some way. Raised bed structures can be made of wood, rock, concrete or other materials, and can be of any size or shape. The soil is usually enriched with compost.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to agriculture:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to sustainable agriculture:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to organic gardening and farming:
In agriculture, succession planting refers to several planting methods that increase crop availability during a growing season by making efficient use of space and timing.
Eliot Coleman is an American farmer, author, agricultural researcher and educator, and proponent of organic farming. He wrote The New Organic Grower. He served for two years as Executive Director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), and was an advisor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture during its 1979–80 study, Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming, a document that formed the basis for today's legislated National Organic Program (2002) in the U.S.
Urban agriculture,urban farming, or urban gardening is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around urban areas. It encompasses a complex and diverse mix of food production activities, including fisheries and forestry, in many cities in both developed and developing countries. Urban agriculture is also the term used for animal husbandry, aquaculture, urban beekeeping, and horticulture. These activities occur in peri-urban areas as well. Peri-urban agriculture may have different characteristics.
Aquaponics is a food production system that couples aquaculture with the hydroponics whereby the nutrient-rich aquaculture water is fed to hydroponically grown plants, where nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia into nitrates.
A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under 0.40 hectares to some hectares, or sometimes in greenhouses, distinguishes it from other types of farming. A market garden is sometimes called a truck farm.
Biointensive agriculture is an organic agricultural system that focuses on achieving maximum yields from a minimum area of land, while simultaneously increasing biodiversity and sustaining the fertility of the soil. The goal of the method is long term sustainability on a closed system basis. It is particularly effective for backyard gardeners and smallholder farmers in developing countries, and also has been used successfully on small-scale commercial farms.
Organic horticulture is the art and science of growing edible or ornamental crops by emulating and attempting to optimize ideal conditions as those which may be encountered in a naturally functioning ecosystem. Organic agriculture begins with soil building including various techniques to encourage and nurture the microflora, microfauna and fungi in the soil.
Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers. It often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics. Some common choices of structures to house vertical farming systems include buildings, shipping containers, tunnels, and abandoned mine shafts. As of 2020, there is the equivalent of about 30 ha of operational vertical farmland in the world.
Booker T. Whatley was an agriculture professor at Tuskegee University, Alabama, United States and one of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture in the post-World War II era. He also aimed to "generate an agrarian black middle class".
Horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits and vegetables and also flowers or ornamental plants.
Indigenous horticulture is practised in various ways across all inhabited continents. Indigenous refers to the native peoples of a given area and horticulture is the practice of small-scale intercropping.
French intensive gardening also known as raised bed, wide bed, or French market gardening is a method of gardening in which plants are grown within a smaller space and with higher yields than other traditional gardening methods. The main principles for success are often listed as soil improvement, raised beds, close spacing, companion planting, succession planting and crop rotation. Originating in France, the practice is popular among urban gardeners and small for profit farming operations.
Saltwater aquaponics is a combination of plant cultivation and fish rearing, systems with similarities to standard aquaponics, except that it uses saltwater instead of the more commonly used freshwater. In some instances, this may be diluted saltwater. The concept is being researched as a sustainable way to eliminate the stresses that are put on local environments by conventional fish farming practices who expel wastewater into the coastal zones, all while creating complementary crops.
Jean-Martin Fortier is a Québécois farmer, author, educator and advocate for ecological, human-scale and economically-viable sustainable agriculture.
This glossary of agriculture is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in agriculture, its sub-disciplines, and related fields. For other glossaries relevant to agricultural science, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of ecology, Glossary of environmental science, and Glossary of botany.
