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Gardens with a 12,000-person waiting list

bbc.com

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Re: Gardens with a 12,000-person waiting list

#11

Post by yorwba »

sampo wrote: post #4
choeger wrote: post #2

It should be noted that these gardens are comparatively cheap. For many there is no other feasible way to own a few 100m² of green and free sky.

> For many there is no other feasible way to own a few 100m² of green and free sky. For many this is not a feasible way either, as there are 12 000 people in line before them.

Eh, there may be 12,000 names on the list, but that doesn't mean you have to wait for all of them to get a garden before it's your turn. Many of those people will have changed their minds in the meantime, or they don't like a particular lot that's freed up, because you usually can't just leave it as-is. The one in the article burned down, many other lots have houses that violate new regulations but were grandfathered in, so you have to demolish and rebuild. Then there's the workload of actually gardening...

I'm also not sure where they're getting the 12,000 from, since to my knowledge every "colony" manages their own waiting lists. If they're just adding the number of people on each list to arrive at the total, they're double-counting people who're not looking for a garden in a particular location and appear on multiple lists.

All in all, if you really want a garden, it's absolutely feasible with a few years of waiting. And if you just want to dream about having one, you can still put your name on the waiting list and politely decline each lot they offer.

EDIT: there's also a sharing platform for people who need help gardening and those who want to do it: https://www.datschlandia.de/ That is another way to get the benefits of a garden bypassing the waiting lists.

Re: Gardens with a 12,000-person waiting list

#13

Post by m-i-l »

There was a 40 year waiting list for allotments in some parts of London 10 years ago[0], and 6 years ago the number of allotments had remained the same but the waiting list more than doubled from 800 to 1,765[1] so it could be longer than 40 years now.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/jun/02/allotments-sho...

[1] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/allotments_and_waitin...

Re: Gardens with a 12,000-person waiting list

#14

Post by Ididntdothis »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #8
choeger wrote: post #2

It should be noted that these gardens are comparatively cheap. For many there is no other feasible way to own a few 100m² of green and free sky.

* in Berlin I’m pretty sure you can buy land in rural areas for pennies.

The whole point of these is that they are not too far from home.

Re: Gardens with a 12,000-person waiting list

#15

Post by southerndrift »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #8
choeger wrote: post #2

It should be noted that these gardens are comparatively cheap. For many there is no other feasible way to own a few 100m² of green and free sky.

* in Berlin I’m pretty sure you can buy land in rural areas for pennies.

Not literally, because farmland isn't that cheap.

Re: Gardens with a 12,000-person waiting list

#17

Post by DragonCot »

As somebody who has done his time on a waiting list for an allotment, and has been allotmenteering for the past 7 years now, I find these small German allotments vastly different to our UK ones. I fly reasonably often to Munich and I've often seen them alongside the railway lines... and they are immaculate. But the bit I find odd is that there is an awful lot of grass. We in the UK tend to focus more on food or flower production, yet those German ones seem more geared to relaxation more than anything. Ours are more of a weekend digging variety, theirs seem to be more of an evening BBQing and a beer kind. Maybe its a weather thing. Maybe its just a cultural thing.

And maybe we ought to encourage more people to stop playing video games and get out and grow more stuff.

https://martin-way-plot30.blogspot.com

Re: Gardens with a 12,000-person waiting list

#20

Post by Aromasin »

DragonCot wrote: post #17

As somebody who has done his time on a waiting list for an allotment, and has been allotmenteering for the past 7 years now, I find these small German allotments vastly different to our UK ones. I fly reasonably often to Munich and I've often seen them alongside the railway lines... and they are immaculate. But the bit I find odd is that there is an awful lot of grass. We in the UK tend to focus more on food or flowe…

In my eyes we shouldn't stop people from doing anything. What we should do is encourage people to have a wider variety of hobbies and interest, of which gardening a few hours a week can be coupled with video games - or whatever they want to do to relax and unwind. Variety is the spice of life.
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