Survey data on home gardeners and urban gardening practice in Pune, India

Data Brief. 2019 Oct 11:27:104652. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.104652. eCollection 2019 Dec.

Abstract

The role of home gardens as productive green spaces in emerging megacities has so far been neglected when addressing pathways for sustainable urban development. This data article provides quantitative data from a questionnaire survey on gardening practice among home gardeners in Pune, one of the fastest growing cities in India and the Asian-Pacific region. Data include growing decisions and food production, fertilization, treatment of pests or irrigation as well as the cultural and recreational use of the garden. The survey also covered sociodemographic background information on the respondents and their gardening motivations. The data were used for a research article to build indicators for economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability dimensions of urban agriculture and analyze gardeners' characteristics that lead to increased sustainability outcomes entitled "Home Gardening Practice in Pune (India), the Role of Communities, Urban Environment and the Contribution to Urban Sustainability"[1]. The data and questionnaire are provided at the Open Research Data repository at the Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany (https://doi.org/10.4228/ZALF.DK.109). The data offer an empirical baseline to conduct studies on the interrelationships of gardeners' motivations, gardening practice and the value and outcomes of home gardening in an accelerated urbanization process.

Keywords: Gardening practice; India; Pune; Sustainability; Urban agriculture.