Urban Garden Plots

Urban garden plots – a precurser of urban gardening
Generally gardening in the city is not new, but unlike urban gardening, it used to be practiced only together with the family in the own backyard. There have always been citizens who have farmed the arable land around their houses. Until the last century there used to be big public areas next to these private gardens, where industrial businesses or independent farmers cultivated fruits and vegetables and thereby ensured the needed supply of the urban population.



This supply was necessary, since many of the grown products went bad after a short amount of time, so that longer transportation routes were not possible. Not until the development of faster transportation and cooling aggregates in the previous century, it became possible to resign from inner-city cultivation for the most part, so that these areas were transformed into residential areas and industrial settlements.

About 150 years ago the time of the garden plots started in the German-speaking area and was intended for the less well-off citizens with no house and garden. Especially in the urban areas and at the suburbs small garden plot colonies were formed. Whereas the self-supply of the garden plot holders with fruits and vegetable was the primary purpose until a few decades ago, nowadays the recreational aspect is overriding.

Even if ecology nature and the protection of the environment were of importance, most of the allotment gardeners simply wanted to have a nice garden with lawn and ornamental plants. But this development seems to be in transition, because more and more young people and families realize the advantages of growing the own vegetables and the importance of a healthy diet.

Almost a century ago, further initiatives in the section of garden plots used to be so called working-gardens and handiwork gardens that were intended for a certain target groups. Like that there were for example gardens for miners and railroad employees, primarily with the intention to tie the people to the company. Yet all garden plots had a common benefit for the population that, over the years, was approved also by the politics: they helped to survive in wartime and time of need by providing fruits and vegetables as well as meat from small livestock. Nowadays there are more than 1 Million garden plots in Germany, a lot of them also in small towns as well as large cities. In Hamburg for example every 50th resident owns a garden plot, in Leipzig even almost every 15th.