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organic farming practices through the use of urban vegetable gardens to recreation, and
conducting activities related to environmental education [8,9,10].
Currently, it covers an area of about 1.5 hectares of the San Jerónimo Park (public
space of municipal property), around 42 units ( with sizes ranging from 75 to 150m
2
),
that are divided into individual cultivable plots (primarily cared for by retiree garden-
ers, but not exclusively), school gardens (devoted to elementary students from neigh-
borhood schools) and assigned plots to other associations for scientific experiments (as
the Andalusian Seed Network and Andalusia Platform Free of Transgenics).
The gardens are bound to gardeners and the right to use (and not property) of the plot
occurs for a period of two years (although extendable), in which the gardener agrees to
follow the guidelines and rules set out in regulation set by the NGO “Ecologistas en Ac-
ción” [11]. Also, they participate in promoted courses and workshops on environmental
education.
All plots are considered homelike, but have a “holder” or guardian gardener. How-
ever, there is no impediment to appoint a helper or volunteer (other than family) to help
in cultivating the garden. Its main features are the fact of being a nonprofit social gar-
den, that is, the production is dedicated to the consumption of those who cultivate (to
sale is illegal) and is supported economically by municipal funding and collaboration
of the participants.
The HSJ is governed by rules and is the ONG “Ecologistas en Acción” who veri-
fies compliance with these standards. When a rule is disobeyed, punishment / penalty
should be applied, according to the rules of the garden. The gardener responsible may
be expelled from the parcel that is under his responsibility.
2.1
Initial Modeling of the HSJ Social Organization
In order to organize and establish the behaviors of the different roles and roles' routines
of HSJ organization, as well as the frequency of these routines, we used the so-called
ellipses, a kind of Venn diagram of set theory. The use of ellipses helps us to analyze
the periodicity of the roles' routines, helping the understanding of the agents' behavior,
as well as the identification of interactions between them and the environment. As an
example, Figure 1 shows the ellipses of the routines of the NGO's Secretariat, described
as:
- Daily routines:
to receive candidates' documentations desiring to participate in the
project, called the Aspiring Vegetable Gardener, registering them in the waiting list;
to receive transfer request to plot possession.
- Monthly routines:
to receive monthly fees paid by the Vegetable Gardener to cover
costs with water (drip), pest control material, use of common tools, etc.; to in-
form the meetings; to register Auxiliar Vegetable Gardener (informed by Vegetable
Gardener).
- Biennial routine:
to receive a request from a gardener to continue in the project.
- Seasonal routine:
to sent the received documentation for the NGO Administration.
