The past few years have shown an increasing interest of the international scientific community towards strengthening and intensifying local food production in an attempt to mitigate the negative effect of population growth, generalized climate change or food price volatility. Under these circumstances, a resource neglected by the macroeconomics over time has drawn the researchers' attention, and that is home gardens. Regardless of the fact that current research sees this new resource as an element of food security or an improving factor of the nutrition status in rural communities, home gardens in Romania serve as a real rural capital that has passed the test of time and is already an integral part of local food systems. This paper provides a theoretical approach on the notion of home garden, insisting on the social, economic and environmental characteristics and contributions that this economic category brings to host communities and the society as a whole
