Geneva's market gardeners cultivate a vegetable garden in the heart of the city

Who are we?
Through the “J’aime ma Campagne” Association, Geneva’s market gardeners cultivate an educational vegetable garden right in the heart of the City of Geneva. 

Various vegetables are planted both in open ground and in greenhouses to recreate Geneva’s market gardening traditions in an urban setting. This unique exhibition aims to provide a practical explanation of how and with what techniques the land is cultivated, the roles that the canton’s vegetable growers play in promoting biodiversity, what their daily challenges are, as well as their pride in having been able to feed the population for generations while adapting to evolving agricultural techniques.  

Explanatory panels provide the public with all the educational information. This opportunity for the city and the countryside to come together also includes harvesting the urban crops, which are donated to the “Partage” Foundation, as well as to schoolchildren who come to visit on harvest days.

During the winter, the market gardeners open their cooperative to give visitors a behind-the-scenes look at Geneva’s vegetables.

The Geneva Market Gardeners’ Union (UMG) opens its doors to school classes for a few months. At the intersection of city and countryside, the UMG receives, inspects, stores, and packages Geneva’s vegetables, which it distributes to stores throughout the canton and the rest of Switzerland.

In addition to learning about the work involved in bringing vegetables from harvest to plate, children can marvel at a space created especially for them: The Kingdom of the Four Seasons! There, they can observe how vegetable production evolves and the diversity of vegetables throughout the seasonal cycles through numerous educational displays and activities.

ACTIVITIES: During the winter months, the UMG introduces students to the rest of the vegetables’ journey—from harvest to store shelves—through a tour of its facilities and a specially designed educational space focused on the seasonality of vegetables: “The Kingdom of the 4 Seasons”

The tours, lasting 1.5 to 2 hours, give children a glimpse into the work involved between harvest and distribution, as well as the importance of the seasons for market gardeners and consumers.