As the harsh weather conditions in Portugal start to improve, we are visiting Coimbra with the Open Garden to continue letting our propositions and ideas be rethought through international encounters. Justyna Jakubiec visited the city earlier this month, looking for local materialisations of gardening practices and voices heard in local communities.

The city of Coimbra is characterised by a mix of urban and rural life, with historical ties to gardening practices – we can think of the monasteries scattered around the city that once had their own gardens. Nowadays, one must attentively search for gardens in the city, which Justyna did together with Martinho Soares and Paula Barata Dias (University of Coimbra).

One of the most intriguing locations of our visits is the community garden started in 2018 by Patrícia Esteves as part of her UniPlanet project (see link). The garden is located right by the river Mondego, away from the city centre, in an area with very fertile soil. Interestingly for us, since Rotterdam is the home location for the Open Garden, a city in a country with highly strict and controlled land ownership, this community garden found its space on abandoned land.

Now, 17 families are taking care of the garden. Each has its own patch of land to cultivate as they please, as long as they follow the rules of organic agriculture. The use of the land is free; there is no membership fee for this garden.

As we heard, it is a pity that there is little to no space for cultivation in the city centre, while the index of impermeability is considerably high. It was interesting to observe what is, and can be, happening with abandoned land in Coimbra – community gardening is one such practice.