Many community gardens in large cities worldwide grow vegetables; however, no information regarding the levels of sanitary indicator bacteria and prevalence of foodborne pathogens in vegetables grown in urban community gardens is available. To evaluate the microbiological quality of vegetables from urban community gardens in Korea, 530 samples (nine types of vegetable, including Chinese cabbage, lettuce, radish leaves, spinach, mustard leaves, crown daisy, leek, Korean cabbage, and chicory) were collected at 11 urban community gardens in Seoul, Korea from September through October 2012. The levels of total aerobic bacteria, Escherichia coli, total coliforms, Salmonella spp. Listeria monocytogenes, and E. coli O157:H7 were evaluated quantitatively and/or qualitatively. The mean numbers of total aerobic bacteria and coliforms were 6.3 log CFU/g (range 3.8-8.1 log CFU/g) and 4.3 log CFU/g (range 2.1-6.4 log CFU/g), respectively. Total coliforms were detected on 67% of whole vegetables. Chicory showed the highest number of total aerobic bacteria and coliforms, whereas the lowest number of coliforms was detected on leeks. E. coli was detected on 2.3% of whole vegetables, including lettuce, radish leaves, mustard leaves, and chicory; however, foodborne pathogenic bacteria were not detected on any of the vegetable samples using this highly sensitive and validated procedure. Based on these findings, the presence of coliforms and E. coli demonstrates that opportunity for improvement of microbiological safety exists throughout the produce production chain, although no major foodborne pathogens were present in vegetables grown in urban community gardens.

ABSTRACT
 Introduction
 Materials and Methods
  Collection of vegetable samples
  Enumeration of total aerobic bacteria, E. coli, andcoliforms
  Detection of foodborne pathogenic bacteria
  Results and Discussion
 요 약
 References

• Jin-Won Kim(Department of Environmental Horticulture, The University of Seoul)
• In-Wook Choi(Department of Infection Biology, Chungnam National University School of Medicine)
• Won-Seok Na(Department of Environmental Horticulture, The University of Seoul)
• Enkhjargar Baljii(Department of Environmental Horticulture, The University of Seoul)
• Yong-Man Yu(Department of Applied Biology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Chungnam National University)
• Young-Nam Youn(Department of Applied Biology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Chungnam National University)
• Young-Ha Lee(Department of Infection Biology, Chungnam National University School of Medicine) Correspondence to