Growing vegetables yourself is back in fashion.
Not just since Corona.
It is sown, righteous and plucked.
If you don't have enough space, you can rent arable land like at the Gersthof.
The small farmers are looking for relaxation, contact with nature and a reason to get out.
Growing your own vegetables is becoming increasingly popular - as a result of a shift in awareness
Rental plots on arable land are more in demand this year than ever before
31 tenants at the Gersthof in Erding right next to the thermal baths
Erding
- Marie-Luise Wolters stands in sturdy hiking boots on the loamy arable soil.
With a pitchfork, she sticks strongly into the earth, bent over and over, turns the tool and loosens the soil.
“When you're out here in the field, you forget everything,” says the 80-year-old, “it's almost like meditation.
The work gives me good nerves and keeps me fit. "
More tenants than ever before
The Erdinger woman has rented a strip of farmland to grow her own organic vegetables.
She is a tenant at Gersthof in Altenerding.
There, farmer Klaus Gerst rented 31 plots right next to the thermal baths - more than ever before, last year there were 25.
The trend towards small-scale farming as a hobby is growing.
The following applies: the more urban the environment, the more popular the lease offers.
There are more than 1500 such herb gardens around Munich.
Parcels of 45 or 90 square meters of arable land
The Gersthof has been renting out 45 or 90 square meters of field plots under the keyword “Mein Beet” for seven years.
For 180 or 300 euros per year, the tenants can sow, grow and harvest vegetables to their heart's content - every year in a different place so as not to leach out the ecologically valuable soil.
Farmer Gerst provides a water tank and plants a third of the area for the tenants.
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Gardening keeps you fit and healthy, says Marie-Luise Wolters.
The 80-year-old is on “her” field several times a week.
© Uta Künkler
The trend towards so-called urban gardening only emerged a few years ago, says Petra Eberl-Koch from the Department of Food, Agriculture and Forests in Erding.
"Up until 15 years ago, gardening was no longer viewed as such by young people, it was considered old-fashioned and frowned upon," she says.
The advantages of frozen food and canned food, the resulting time savings and uncomplicated storage - all of this had driven people away from home-growing since the post-war period, says Eberl-Koch.
New awareness of ecology and your own health
But now a new awareness is emerging, says the specialist nutritionist.
Consumers are increasingly paying attention to the ecological balance of products, and they do not want to eat anything that first had to go halfway around the globe.
And people deal more intensively with nutrition, want to eat healthily, have become more sensitive to intolerances and pollutants.
Nowhere can you be more certain of the quality of the vegetables than on your own bed.
The growing demand for rental gardens was fueled by the pandemic.
People have time and are at home a lot this year, they don't plan extensive trips.
“The range of what else you can do is not so extensive at the moment because of Corona,” says Wolters.
She is all the more grateful for her garden.
"Tastes completely different from organic vegetables from the supermarket"
The 80-year-old stands up, then kneels and loosens the chunks of earth with her hand.
Later she will sow the first plants of the season.
Carrots, parsley and lots of spinach, which she loves to eat.
"The vegetables that have grown here just taste wonderful," says Wolters, "very different from organic vegetables from the supermarket".
This is due to the mineral-rich clay soil, explains farmer Gerst.
"You don't need anything more than cauliflower and a side dish for a good meal, for example, the vegetables are nutritious enough."
"The garden, this is my time"
A few parcels further, Stilla Bayerschmidt works the soil with a long-handled rake. The 49-year-old Erdinger has been with the Gersthof from the start. “I'm thrilled,” she says, “I've always wanted something like this”. At home in her row house garden, she lacks the space and leisure to grow vegetables, she says. “The garden, this is my time,” said the mother of two. She already knows that from her own mother, a “great gardener”, says Bayerschmidt. “When something didn't go so smoothly in the family in the past, my mom went out into the garden. There she was fine again straight away. "
The tenants are looking for exercise, relaxation and balance here, says Farmer Gerst.
"Gardening is a way of life", he says and quotes a saying by the Indian philosopher Tagore: "Fools hurry, clever ones wait, wise people go into the garden".
"Outside you take in everything - the changing light every day, the growing and becoming, the whole of creation," says Gerst.
If you do this for a few years, you will learn all by yourself - for life and for nature.
In winter, the next season is planned using an Excel table
Bayerschmidt is now very familiar. The trained hotel specialist is already rolling through specialist literature in winter and planning her seed sequence for the coming season in Excel tables. Then she pulls up the first little plants from seeds. Around 60 pots with small seedlings are currently standing around at her home. Gradually, these are then allowed to go outdoors. She also dares to try the divas among vegetable plants and historical varieties. “Of course there are always failures,” she says, “but I try my hand at it”. That is part of the appeal.
At the back of the bed, René (49) and Kathrin Beukert (45) sow radishes.
They come from the new federal states and both grew up in agriculture.
Now that their own children have grown up, they want to continue growing vegetables from their childhood.
You are here for the first year.
There are also tomato and cucumber plants that they have grown themselves in the Erdinger's apartment, waiting for warmer nights.
The tenants come and go when they want
The tenants come and go when they want.
Depending on the mood, the weather and the types of vegetables, daily or only twice a week.
In this way, the small farmers get to know each other well over the season.
The 80-year-old Marie-Luise Wolters enjoys this community - especially in times of Corona - very much.
“It's also a very nice social thing,” she says.
The yield from the areas is not only too abundant for the single elderly lady in autumn to consume the fresh vegetables. Even the Beukerts and Stilla Bayerschmidt's family of four cannot eat everything themselves. Growing your own food is therefore also accompanied by a rediscovered storekeeping. "The preservation and preservation of vegetables is gaining in importance again," says Eberl-Koch. Old knowledge is valued more again. That is good news.
