Allotment Gardens

As we left the center of Michelstadt and made our way back to the car, we passed by this garden. Anaëlle asked me about these garden shacks you see all over the place outside Frankfurt. I thought people bought or rented plots of land to garden and these sheds (some are quite nice and some can be falling-down messes) were for storing tools. But Anaëlle though the sheds were too big and fancy to be just for storing tools.  Turns out she was right.

All throughout Germany outside of big cities, you will find these clusters of tiny little structures and at first glace, you may mistake them for some kind of little shanty town. A second glance reveals that, beyond the clutter of ladders and rakes leaning against the back of the structures, neatly ordered flowerbeds, well-tended fruit trees and picture-perfect picket fences are lined up like regiments of tin soldiers. The phenomenon is known as a Schrebergarten -- an area outside the city where gardening-obsessed Germans can rent out a small plot and plunge their fingers into the soil.

What looks like a slice of outdoor freedom though, is actually far from it. In 1983, the German government passed the Bundeskleingartengesetz ("Federal Small Garden Law"), which regulates just how big a small garden is allowed to be and includes nine further pages describing, in German legaleze, every other aspect of what the "Schreber-gardener" is faced with. In addition, each colony has a formal leadership structure and a book of rules that regulates everything from the exact dimensions, color and style of the shack to when one is allowed to mow the lawn or use other noisy gardening machinery. Unkempt gardens are also frowned upon.

The Schrebergarten phenomenon is not a new one. Dr. Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber, a 19th century naturopath, wanted to create more athletic fields for the children in his home city of Leipzig. He died in 1861 before the plan could be realized, but his son-in-law got the ball rolling in 1864 and before long, small vegetable plots were planted in the fields as well to teach the children the basics of gardening. The idea quickly took off. But it was during World War I and World War II that the gardens rapidly rose in importance as sources of otherwise hard-to-get fresh fruit and vegetables. Furthermore, after World War II ended, a lack of housing across the country resulted in the common practice of erecting small structures on the plots so that families could find shelter.

The result today are thousands of garden colonies on the outskirts of big cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that look more like miniature housing developments than peaceful nature retreats. For the most part, the colonies are no longer residential, but in the summertime, they are packed with families enjoying the sunshine, crammed onto their tiny plots grilling, eating and relaxing.

With this information in hand, I decided to document the Schrebergarten that I see on a daily basis -- on my way drive to and from the kids' school.  With Micaela as my photo-journalist aid, we photographed and counted every cluster of gardens we saw.

On the 15-minute drive, we counted 13 Schrebergartens.  Many are nice, as the article I copied and pasted above described.  And some people like to add a bit of kitsch to their gardens, displaying windmills and gnomes.

 But many near the school looked delapidated and did resemble a shanty town.  When I explained to the kids that I would be blogging about these gardens, James said, "And all along I thought those were homes for poor people!"