The Horizon Europe project Hort2theFuture (H2F) and the gardening app Fryd are joining forces to mobilise home gardeners and gardening communities around better soil management through simple, guided experiments. In early November, Fryd Lab will introduce new ways for gardeners to become citizen scientists and transform their gardens and planting pots into horticultural laboratories. Fryd will launch a set of experiments starting in the spring 2026, along with a new Garden Organic feature and an in-app soil quiz. The Hort2theFuture [...]

The Hort2theFuture consortium gathered at Corvinus University in Budapest this September for its annual meeting, bringing together 28 project partners from 12 European countries. Over two productive days, the consortium reviewed the strong progress made in the first 18 months of the project and aligned plans for the next steps in advancing sustainable horticulture. Sharing the project’s progress The meeting opened with updates from each Work Package Leader, covering project management, communication, and knowledge exchange activities, followed by discussions on [...]

A low-tech test with big potential As part of the Hort2thefuture project, the European Training Academy (EUTA), led by Steve Quarrie, is working with growers in Serbia and North Macedonia to test a simple but powerful method for measuring soil health. Known as the teabag test, it uses the rate of teabag decomposition as an indicator of microbial activity in the soil. The idea is straightforward. A teabag is weighed, buried in the soil, and left for a few months. [...]

Supporting change through collaboration Since September 2024, the EUTA team has been visiting growers across Serbia as part of the Hort2thefuture project. Led by Steve Quarrie and Ratko Bojović, and coordinated by Milena Micevski, the team has travelled from Belgrade to Valjevo, Ub, Mionica, and Zrenjanin, engaging with 13 farms in total. These include both conventional and organic producers of fruits, vegetables, salad crops, and wine grapes. The visits form part of Task 6.2 of the project, which focuses on [...]

Last year, the EUTA team helped researchers from Serbia, primarily through our review service, to submit 50 project proposals for the Ideja, Science Fund call. Some of our clients with whom we collaborated during the writing of Project Ideas are: Institute for Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering (IMGGI), Institute for Biological Research Siniša Stanković (IBISS), INN Vinča, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade, etc., a total of 19 [...]

After several years of work with primary schools and organic growers in Serbia, the results of these Strength2Food activities are having a tangible impact. To improve the nutritional quality of school meals and encourage schools to use short food supply chains for their food procurements, EUTA has been working with nearly 30 primary schools. The first of these (OŠ Kralj Petar I, Belgrade) submitted procurement documents for fresh organic vegetables to the procurement web portal in July, 2020. EUTA has [...]