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Can you dig it?

Urban allotment gardens or Schrebergärten – traditionally the provinces of senior citizens lording it over their land, Hamburg’s allotments are enjoying an influx of young professionals who are growing the community as well as their vegetables.


Whenever I’ve spent an extended period abroad I’ve had most of the German nicknames bestowed upon me. The Brits called me Bosch, like the home appliance company; in the US, playing football, I was the Kaiser, after football legend Franz Beckenbauer; in Russia, things were less nuanced – there, children simply shouted “Hitler kaputt!” at me.

While there’s often a grain of truth to clichés, some are simply wrong – I am terrible at football, for example. Yet others need to be redefined, including one German stereotype in particular: the Schrebergarten.

A relatively unique form of urban gardening, in Hamburg these allotments cover an area equal to just under 2,700 football pitches and, according to some, are under threat of becoming increasingly un-Germanic. But what does that mean?

The Schrebergarten first came about in the mid-19th century. During industrialisation, many families lived in poor, overcrowded conditions. Light, air, sun and exercise were seen as the best recipe for boosting health, so small, fenced urban gardens sprang up as a solution. (They’re named after the Leipzig-born physician Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber, who was also known for chinstraps to correct crooked teeth, not to mention similarly sadistic appliances to prevent masturbation.)

The gardens are typically seen as the bulwarks of German parochialism: grumpy pensioners trimming the lawn with nail scissors while their wives polish the obtrusively smiling garden gnomes. That’s why I used to keep a safe distance from these plots of land, even though the paths intersecting the large “colonies” are open to the public. The folks behind the neatly cut hedges – in their sandals, white socks and Adidas shorts – frightened me. Little did I expect to become a Schrebergartenfan someday.

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