Roman guerrilla and community gardeners build a movable edible garden for those occupying Santa Croce in Gerusalemme

“Orto Errante” in Italian means wandering garden

By Silvia Cioli
Zappata Romana
Nov 16, 2011

The event on October 15th was organized in less than a week. Zappata Romana was asked by the Rome Occupy to put up an edible garden in the square near the tents next to the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

Zappata Romana called the people who take care of the many shared gardens in the city and the response was surprising – more than 20 groups joined and came to the appointment.

The idea was that Zappata Romana would build containers (painted recycled market wooden boxes with hemp bags and coloured garden markers) for the different contributors. The gardeners would bring earth and plants.

In one afternoon the garden was built with the enthusiastic help of everyone, passing by citizens included.

After about a month, the edible garden moved (“Orto Errante” in Italian means wandering garden) near to the ancient Caracalla Baths where the Occupy tents have recently moved to.



You ask about the purpose. It is not only for it’s nutritional value, it has a symbolic value for the urban community, the encounter of people, the importance of land and nature and last but not least, help the Occupy group that does not always get a positive image in the media.

The people who took part are simple citizens fighting urban sprawl with their garden, others are from a social centre and work with disabled people in the garden, others are guerrilla gardeners, others do gardening in an abandoned public area in their neighbourhood, others are unemployed who have lost their job and work on a garden project together, and much much more.

Zappata romana! is a project about public space by studioUAP. The objective is to promote community gardens in Rome as a collective action of urban public space appropriation to encourage environmental, economic and social practices. Hopefully a network of community gardens and public support policies will get started, as in most other European countries.

See more photos here.

See also:

• Permaculture and Occupy Wall Street (video)

• Guerrilla Gardening and Occupy Movement (video)

• #Occupy: Suggested Reading from AK Press!