The vegetable garden in the city center

Wormwood, Swiss chard, capers, onions, coriander, bush and climbing beans, eggplants, savory, parsley, celery, sage, thyme, mint (bergamot, Moroccan, and peppermint), as well as potatoes, tomatoes, zucchinis, and rhubarb. This is a glimpse of what grew in the flowerbed at Piazza Manzoni, created in 2016 by the students of the Azienda agraria cantonale di Mezzana, with the support of Verde Pubblico and the City of Lugano.

A collaboration for a special anniversary

The unusual horticultural project was conceived to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Azienda agraria cantonale di Mezzana. For the occasion, the City of Lugano provided the students with a flowerbed in the city center to transform into a vegetable garden.

The flowerbed was expanded to recover its original size of 200 square meters (reduced years ago for temporary reasons). The vegetable garden was created through the collaboration of numerous school students: its design was the result of an internal competition involving around sixty second-year students, landscape gardeners, and horticulturists. The marking of the garden beds was carried out by third-year students, while the planting was again handled by second-year students.

Discovering vegetables

Throughout the summer of 2016, it was possible to follow the growth of vegetables that most of us are used to seeing only in supermarkets or directly on our plates. The vegetable garden was equipped with labels displaying the names of the various vegetables, some of which were still below the surface of the earth at the time.