ᐅ Are vegetable gardens no longer desired?

I never really wanted a vegetable garden. I find it quite a bit of work. I’d rather spend my time on my sea of flowers.
But unfortunately, our little one hardly eats any fruit or vegetables, so we try to make it more appealing by letting him snack straight from the trees and bushes.
So far: 2 cherry trees, 1 currant bush, thornless blackberries, raspberries (with even more thorns), 1 strawberry planter, and a potato bed.
Every evening we go outside together to check on the progress. That childlike excitement when the first potato plants poke through the soil and then get hilled up is contagious, and by now I really enjoy it too. By the way, we don’t have much work with the vegetable garden at all.

I enjoy producing products myself. Unfortunately, I currently lack a bit of time, but I’m starting small. So far, about 8 different herbs, fruit trees, berry bushes, and wild strawberries have been planted. A large vegetable bed is coming, but not until next year or the year after. And I like greenhouses! @ypg where did you get yours from?

I love our 1500 m² (16,145 sq ft) garden; after just two years, it’s already an oasis... at least that’s what our guests say 🙂 For the children, it’s simply wonderful to go into the garden and snack on currants or raspberries or to make jam or syrup with me from them.

In our residential area, it was mostly just lawn at first. Gradually, trees, shrubs, planting corners, and here and there some garden beds—and now increasingly raised beds—were added. So far, I don’t think I’ve seen a greenhouse yet.

Wait a year or two, and you won’t be the only one with a kitchen garden anymore.

I know about kitchen gardens from community gardens, great-grandparents, grandparents, parents—three generations have cultivated the same piece of land. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to continue the tradition, at least not in the original place.

But I have certainly spent thousands of enjoyable hours gardening—especially growing useful plants. And it has been very educational!

Sadly, I observe a trend that aligns with what Karsten mentioned earlier in the thread. The organic and green ideas are increasingly narrowed down to consumption, and people are becoming more and more disconnected from the origins of their goods.

Electricity just comes from the outlet, and organic vegetables come from the supermarket aisle.

An anecdote that I sadly consider representative: when the apartment building where my grandparents live was bought by a Turkish family, they transformed the former front lawn into a vegetable bed. Beans, leeks, cabbage, lettuce, an apple tree, pea trellises. Everything somewhat mixed rather than designed as permaculture—it’s supposed to be easy to maintain.

When I expressed my opinion that this was a wonderful garden, I was very much alone. Only my grandparents could show some understanding from their community garden days. You could do it that way. But—finger wagging—not in a German front garden. How does that look?

Well, what does it look like? It looks like small-scale, intentionally cultivated nature. I just don’t understand how people can appreciate great products but fail to recognize the beauty in how they come about.

But if I had a single-family house with a large enough garden, I would also have such a non-German mixed vegetable patch. Most likely my neighbors on both sides would think with their chlorophyll deserts: It looks like the Turks’ place. They’d just have to live with it.

But this “live and let live” mindset does not seem to be fully in line with the German mentality. Community garden rules that require ornamental garden quotas? That’s just crazy...

( Note the shifts between winking and genuine shaking of the head in the subtext )

toxicmolotow schrieb:
Are you sure about that? Okay, if "organic" comes from the supermarket shelf, if "sustainability" is something you pay for with money (solar panels, eco-friendly bricks, and the green rail card and parcel shipping with CO2 label… and "health" comes from the gym).
….
And I bet, out of the last 100 homeowners here in our town, at most 10, rather 5, have potatoes in their garden or are planning to.

But that’s exactly the point!
I’m not saying people should just buy organic products or go to the gym.

But these topics, the ones I mentioned, are on everyone’s lips. Many want to jump on the “better living” bandwagon.

And that doesn’t always have to mean buying organic products from the supermarket; it can also be the homegrown tomato from a pot in the garden or vegetables from your own patch. For children, it’s a wonderful experience and a chance to learn how a fruit or vegetable actually grows. Instead, countless play structures are put up in the garden for the kids.
The man signs up at the fitness center instead of mowing the lawn himself, and so on.

Everything nowadays feels artificial, with constant replacements, even though the good things are right there nearby.

To Evolith's Zwerg: Don't worry, I'm almost 60, fairly healthy, and have managed this almost entirely without fruits and vegetables.