Urban Milpa System for Traditional Gastronomy Made of Sustainable Produce from Three Cultivation Cycles in Monterrey, México

Traditional milpa systems provide agroecological knowledge based on crop complementarity, seed selection, and local management, but their performance in spatially constrained urban settings remains insufficiently documented. This study investigates the implementation of selected milpa principles in a raised-bed urban cultivation in Monterrey, northeastern México, across three successive cultivation cycles during 2024–2025 at a private academic institution. This longitudinal field-based study documented site selection, sector analysis, raised-bed construction, substrate preparation, seed selection and propagation, pest management, grain production, proximate composition, and culinary use of produce from sustainable agriculture. The polyculture cultivation comprised maize, beans, squash, garlic, amaranth, oregano, and creole tomato. The crop establishment and productivity varied between cultivation sectors and cycles. Early harvests were incorporated into culinary preparations led by chefs in restaurants, reproducing the heritage of traditional recipes, and providing evidence of the culinary applicability of produce from the urban milpa. Proximal nutritional analyses of maize and beans from the postharvest period indicate that ash, crude fiber, and crude fat remained comparable between cultivation cycles, yet cycle 2 produced greater maize grain yields and protein than cycle 1; these differences cannot be attributed to individual environmental, varietal, or management factors because the cycles were not independent experimental treatments. The study shows that implementing selected milpa principles is feasible within the spatial and environmental constraints of urban space, providing a reproducible approach for evaluating urban adaptations of traditional polyculture systems for food production.