Allotment+Gardens

.......they could spend some time away from the city...  __Allotment gardens – Schrebergärten __  An allotment garden (BE) or community garden (AE) is one of several land parcels used for individual, non-commercial gardening. As the parcels are not cultivated collectively each owner can decide on the shape of his/her own piece of land even though there are often rules differing from community to community. According to the rules only the use as a garden is allowed (i.e. to grow vegetables, fruits and flowers) but residential purposes are strictly forbidden. The individual gardeners usually pay a small membership fee to the allotment association they are organized in. The parcels usually include a shed and their size ranges in most cases between 50 and 400 square meters.

Allotment gardening in Germany was started during the period of industrialization and urbanization in the 19th century when many people moved to the cities where they found employment. The general working and living conditions for those migrated families were often from poor standard as they suffered from noisy and dirty workspaces as well as inappropriate housing and malnutrition.

Allotment gardens, in the beginning known as "gardens of the poor", were thought to achieve improvement of the people's overall situation as they could spend some time away from the city and would be able to grow their own food. That is why city administrations, the churches or their employers provided open spaces for garden purposes.

The so-called "Schreber Movement", named after Schreber, a German physician and university teacher at University of Leipzig, was started in the city of Leipzig in Saxony and is a representative example for the idea of organised allotment gardening. Leipzig school principal Ernst Innozenz Hauschild established the first "Schrebergarten" after Schreber's death in 1864. Primarily it was a public initiative which aimed to create natural areas in the cities to give children the possibility of playing in a healthy environment. Anyhow, adults enjoyed these idyllic spaces equally and so it did not take long until they started cultivating those gardens. Fast this idea gained popularity not only in Germany, but also in Austria and Switzerland.

Therefore Schrebergärten (sg. Schrebergarten) is the term used in German-speaking countries when referring to allotment gardens.



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