Gaza Grown: Home Gardens for Food Security

Home gardens that helped 75 displaced families in Gaza grow their own vegetables beside their tents and shelters, designed for people with no farming experience.

The challenge

During the war, farmland across Gaza was badly damaged and fresh vegetables became scarce. Thousands of families were living in tents and temporary shelters, often with no garden, little space and no farming experience.

Any solution had to work in emergency conditions, with almost no water, tools or materials to spare, and with movement heavily restricted.

The design idea

Rather than one shared garden, we designed a home-garden package each family could set up beside its own shelter, so the harvest stayed with the household and needed no land.

Key design decision

We designed the package so a family could start harvesting quickly. Each one combined ready-planted pots for an early harvest with empty pots, seeds and soil for the next crops. The field team chose the plants based on what families actually needed, and bought everything in local markets so nothing depended on imports.

Materials and construction

• Pots already planted with seedlings such as tomato, pepper, eggplant, corn and mallow
• Empty pots, clay soil, growing soil and, in the second round, a fertiliser packet
• Seed packets for zucchini, eggplant and cucumber
• Delivered in two rounds; each round was prepared and distributed over five days, by tuk-tuk because cars were unavailable
• For the safety of the team and families, only package preparation was photographed, not the handover

Results

• 75 displaced families grew their own vegetables beside their shelters.
• Families gained fresh food while relying less on scarce aid supplies.
• Gardens became calm, productive spaces where children learned about growing food.
• Demand far exceeded supply: many more families asked for packages than the project could serve.