This paper originates in a study of Community Gardens in the United States. An overview of how and why the gardens have emerged, their functions today, and their effects and problems is presented. The reader will also be introduced to a selection of Swedish movements that correspond with the phenomenon of the American Community Garden. These are as follows; The Allotment Garden, the Swedish term Stadsdelsträdgård (a metaphor for a Community Garden in a Swedish urban context), Mykorrhiza Malmö Stadsodlare and The Allotment Plot. None of the above-mentioned Swedish movements can be described as an exact equivalent of the American Community Garden, but they all contain elements witch constitutes parts of the phenomenon.

Stureholm Manor and garden is a relatively young farming unit on clay soil in the north western part of Skåne, a province in Southern Sweden. Since the middle of the 19th century the landscape has been actively cultivated and has been transformed from oak forrest into farmingland of high efficiency. The industrial era during the 19th and 20th centuries meant new posssibilites for Cultivation of these clay soils. With equipment like steam ploughs and the possibility to obtain fertilizers, the harvest increased considerably. This increased prosperity provided estate Stureholm with a beatuiful corps de logi, a manor. The trends prevailing in Europe around the turn of the century 1800-1900 against the growing industrialism, was turned into a artisan movement known as Arts and Craft. The Swedish followers idealized our Swedish history and they took the turn of a national romantic movement that later turned into neoclassicism.