Community Garden in Berlin

RantWoman is a sucker for a good community gardening story. This one is about Berlin; RantWoman apologizes that she cannot offer clearer attribution.



I've recently returned from a week in Berlin, Germany, a city famous for a wall that is no more. I was attending a week long workshop on growing food in cities.

With Berliners celebrating the 20th anniversary of German Reunification, it was a special time to be there and to be talking about the power of gardens to tear down walls within society.Our host garden for the week was Prinzessinnengarten, a new 6000 square meter (1.5 acre) community garden which has cropped up in the shadows of the former Berlin Wall.

Buzzing with people, bees, and diverse edible plants, Prinzessinnengarten is similar to other community gardens you may have visited except for one important detail: not a single one of its countless crops is planted in the ground. This garden is a nomadic garden of plants sown in rice bags, milk crates, and recycled juice containers.

Why a moveable feast as opposed to something more permanent? The nonprofit organization managing the project saw an opportunity to turn what was formerly a wasteland into a beautiful and productive landscape but because they don't own the land, they don't have permission to set down roots. That hasn't stopped them though from cultivating tons of fresh vegetables and, more importantly, a sense of community.


Within the span of just two years, the project has become a beacon of bright green light in an otherwise dull gray neighborhood. Area residents work in the garden, but also play together. People sit at wooden tables under the makeshift shade of a repurposed sailboat sail sipping coffee and beer and enjoying simple meals prepared with garden ingredients.

Local musical groups hold concerts there in the summer. Children's activities are organized to help connect the next generation to gardening and the origins of healthy food. Former East and West Berliners mix and mingle with Turkish immigrants and members of Berlin's large expatriate community. Together, they find peace and a bit of common ground, even if they can't plant in it.

We face enormous challenges in figuring out how we're going to feed the world's growing urban population. What I took from my week in Berlin is that many things become possible when we tear down walls and invest our energy in building shared spaces and a sense of a shared destiny. More importantly, I learned that we can't afford to wait for the "ideal" conditions (land, people, funds, weather, etc.) to present themselves to start garden projects. Those conditions won't happen on their own, but with some luck and pluck we can make them happen. This philosophy is perhaps best captured in a quote attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of Germany's most famous writers and thinkers:"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."