Urban Gardening vol. 2 - Berlin is a city of urban gardening lovers

 

 

Michał, Gartenlabor Urban Garden (Neukölln, Berlin)

Can you tell something about your gardening experience?

From time to time I help out a bit in Gartenlabor Urban garden project. It's usually twice a week but I don't have that much time. Anyway, whenever I'm there it is a lot of fun – we are cutting wood and planting seeds. I don't live in the same area where the garden is, so it's harder. I think in general it’s important to have a garden in the place where you live. It takes less energy and you can spend more time to care of your plants.

Why are you involved?

Mainly because I believe that urban gardening is really important for the future. More people live in the cities and the quality of our food is getting worse. It’s a time to start being independent and grow our own food. Urban gardening is a way to do it. I have only been around in Berlin in only two years but even in this short time I can see that our community garden became great! I was in the first garden meeting two years ago. We built the first raised beds out of the tire and we had problems with police because someone was complaining that we dumped old tires illegally. Since then lots of things happened and now we have a real garden there.

Do you think young people are losing contact with nature?

Not all of them. I believe that there are lots of young people like me who love to spend free time in nature. I also know people that have never gone camping in the forest. To me that’s very strange. I think everyone should do this at least one time in their live. It helps to see nature and what it brings to you and your life. Being in nature will calm you down and make you a good observer. You can find some balance. This is similar to gardening or growing your own food. I think many things could be done in the education system. In schools in Germany we don't have anything like education about food or cooking so we have to learn it ourselves. If you live in the city like Berlin you can be easily get involved in the garden project and learn all those aspects.

 

Sander, Agora Community Garden (Neukölln, Berlin)

Why is urban gardening getting more interesting for young people?

I think here in Berlin we have so many community gardens so usually someone from your friends has already been involved in one of them. It’s very easy to be inspired by the urban gardening movement in Berlin. I think it’s also interesting especially here in the city because most of us live for example on the higher floor without access to the garden. So if you wanted to plant something you start looking for a place like community garden. I guess people will do gardening if they have an option to do it.

Do we sometimes lose contact with the nature when we are living in the city?

Yes of course. People in our age just don't even know what an eggplant is or where it comes from. Education is very important and urban gardening helps to open our eyes on the nature and multitude of processes. If everyone will have a garden it will be really good for our “throw away society”. Actually, not only gardens are solutions, but also field trips where young people could go outside of the city and see what kind of animals lives in the stream, in the forest or in other type of micro- climate.

How do people in our age value food?

I live between special people who are aware and conscious about what they eat and from where the food is coming from. I feel it starts to be quite important for me and in general for people in our age that we are more curious if food is fair trade and sustainable and what kind of impact it has on the world. Right now I value more where the food is coming from and if it's organic, sustainable and local. We can make changes already during selecting products in the shop. People are not aware of this enough and I guess we are not educated enough. Some of us think that food must be cheap and delivered straight to our doors. We should know that food production is not a folding of computer components; it's a long process which takes a lot of work and resources. That's why I believe that urban gardening is important for young people to know that you need 6 months to grow your own tomatoes.

 

Ruta, Gartenlabor Community Garden (Neukölln, Berlin)

What is gardening for you?

For me gardening is a basic need like drinking water. I guess I need to do it because I grew up in this. It also always makes me happy. I used to do gardening with my family. Here in Berlin there are a lot of migrants like me who don't have families so it’s logically developing in that direction. Since a few years I'm always looking for an opportunity to grow my own food. I also think if people will buy food in supermarket, it effects their development, immune system, bacterial intelligent of your body and ability to resist stress.

What is urban gardening in Berlin like? Is there something particular here in comparison to other cities?

Of course Berlin is a special example. Some time ago there were a lot of empty spaces. It’s similar to what is going on with gardening now in Detroit. It’s a big movement because of unused, postindustrial empty spaces. In Berlin, when the wall was still here, there were gardens close to the wall, on the land which was not used. It was like a gray zone perfect for this kind of DIY initiatives. After some time, social scientists recognized that horticulture has a good impact for welfare of communities and can be used in social work.

Why do you think gardening is getting more important for young people?

I don't have any data but certainly it is connected with the political, economic and social situation right now. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy person but it's the contrary action on the current state of the capitalism and this kind of society we are living. Some young people have a garden because of their economic needs. Second I think it’s the level of pollution in the world so we have more health problems since birth. There are a lot of issues like that, that pushed people to think about healthy environment and climate change. Gardening is one of the easiest ways to make good changes.

Can you tell me something about your personal gardening experience?

I come from a little town and even though my family were not farmers, we had to garden because it was only one source to get food. If you didn't grow potatoes in the summer there will be nothing to eat in the winter. We had a garden next to the house which used to belong to one family but then was divided between few families. Behind it was a piece of land where each family had a long strip of land. If you went there now, all those pieces of land are unused. Back then gardening was a solution for people who had problems to find food. Also we went to the forest to pick blueberries or raspberries. These times people do it for fun, but we had to do it to survive.

Then I moved to city and the time changed. I didn't do gardening but I missed it a lot. Actually, one of the first things I got involved in Berlin was an urban gardening project. In 2010 there weren’t so many gardens in the city. There was the garden called “Rosa Rosa” – kind of a free and lefty garden which I found very attractive. I really missed doing physical work, being in nature and being able to relax from this demanding environment. That's why I easily got involved in gardening.