Climate change and allotment gardens: gardening for the future

Status: 09/24/2022 12:02 p.m

Much heat, little rain: If you have an allotment garden, you have to rethink. Like growing vegetables. Figs and kiwis are now also growing in the “green lungs” of Frankfurt.

The fig tree in Peter Beckmann’s leisure garden in the middle of Frankfurt’s popular Nordend district is full of fruit. “I used to only know that from Italy or Spain,” says the 53-year-old nurse. “The figs here have developed incredibly, that’s due to climate change,” says the father of two children and bites into the fruit with relish. He spends his free time here in the countryside, away from traffic and noise, almost every other day.

His garden is part of the so-called “Green Lung” in Frankfurt am Main. An area twelve football pitches over which there was a year-long struggle between a citizens’ initiative, which Beckmann speaks for, and the city of Frankfurt. They originally wanted to build apartments, schools and kindergartens here. Since the local elections, however, in which the Greens emerged as the strongest force, the plans have only built on already sealed areas.

“Green lungs” of the big city

“The green lung is important for the city’s fresh air supply,” explains Beckmann. If it’s 35 degrees warm in the city center, it’s definitely ten degrees cooler here.” The reason is a fresh air corridor, which drives wind from the nearby Wetterau through the green area into the city center and provides cooling.

There are around 300 gardens here, many of which are so-called leisure gardens in which tenants and owners can basically grow whatever they want. The others are allotment gardens and are subject to allotment garden regulations.

The gardens store water, are pollutant filters and soundproofing and provide habitat for many species of animals and plants. “For example, there are a large number of green woodpeckers here,” explains Beckmann, “but also rarer plants, such as the broad-leaved orchid species – here in the middle of the city.”

Gardens like those in the “green lung” are in high demand in growing cities like Frankfurt am Main. In rural regions, especially in eastern Germany, however, demand and stocks are declining. Overall, the number of allotment gardens in Germany has decreased, according to a study commissioned by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development.

There were 25,000 fewer gardens in the period between 2011 and 2018 – not because of new construction projects, but mainly because of a lack of demand. According to the Federal Association of German Allotment Gardens, the most allotment gardens are in Berlin with 66,000 and in Frankfurt am Main there are 16,000.

How does climate-adapted gardening work?

Because climate change is making itself felt in existing gardens, associations such as NABU are now making recommendations for climate-friendly gardening. Anyone who grows vegetables should switch to varieties that use less water. This means, for example, that carrots, potatoes or pumpkins should be grown instead of tomatoes or cucumbers.

Sascha Apitz from the allotment garden association “Krautgarten” in Kelkheim im Taunus, around twenty kilometers west of Frankfurt, also gives tips for adapted, climate-friendly gardening. The average age of the allotment gardeners there is 47 years. Predominantly young families with children garden here and show a great awareness of ecology and climate change.

“We find that many here fall back on more exotic plants,” says Apitz. “We also have figs here, but kiwi and physalis are now also being planted because they simply need less water and can cope better with the sun.”

Lawn sprinkling prohibited

In August, the municipality of Kelkheim declared a water emergency. Moderate watering with a watering can was still allowed, but sprinkling the lawn was forbidden and pouring drinking water into the rain barrel, for example. “We then advised the allotment gardeners on what to do,” says Apitz. This includes, for example, loosening the soil so that the water can penetrate the soil better in heavy rain.

Incidentally, the gardens in Kelkheim are just as important for the climate as the “green lungs” in Frankfurt am Main, says Apitz. There, the activists around Beckmann hope that the area will remain in place after the next local elections in 2026. He continues to give tours of the gardens several times a year. “So that people become aware of how important space is for the climate and thus for all of us,” says Beckmann.

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