As cities and city dwellers in developed countries have shown increasing interestin agriculture, collective
gardens (defined as opposed to individual back-yard gardens) have multiplied. Their increase in the city
of Montpellier reflects both a demand among citizens and the support of the municipality, and in this
article we address the bridge they create between city and agriculture. Forty semi-structured interviews
were conducted in different municipal collective gardens to investigate the gardeners’ motivations, their
agricultural practices, and their views on gardening and farming.We identified an interestin reconnecting
with farming even when food production is not a priority, and our results suggest that this expansion of
cultivation promoted by city dwellers supports a new link between cities and agriculture that could be
significant in the construction of a sustainable and fertile city.