As we are closing the year, and before we have one week to celebrate the new year I´ve observed something interesting in gardens. I would like to share three events I experienced at the end of 2023. They are: welcoming new members, community dinner, and winter gardening during the storm.
Welcoming new members
As 2023 draws to a close, here I would like to look back on our community garden life this year. I took one example Garden A, which its focus is a garden for everyone. This year five people with interests in joining the garden association came to Garden A for a visit in total, and only two of them have decided to stay in the community and dedicate themself. Two males, and three females, three of them are foreigners, or at least with migration background, two of them are native speakers, the two people who stayed are both foreigners, one comes from Iran, and one comes fresh from the Netherlands.
Today is the 23th. December, the Dutch had informed us a week ago, that she and her friend came to visit the Garden A today. I didn't keep our official gathering appointment on time, I was a little late, but the two girls were already there and one of the garden members had invited them to join in raking the leaves off the lawn. Briefly, raking leaves will help the grass grow and keep our lawn healthy. A thick layer of fallen leaves can deprive grass of sunlight. We raked together, and then we showed them our garden around, such as, how we take care of the group of raised garden beds, and what we do if we meet the homeless guy, to whom we have already given the house prohibition order. So we spent almost one hour for the introduction. Even though the Dutch speaks not fluent German, she asked us to speak it anyway to improve her German language skills. For the next half hour, we raked further, gradually they noticed that today it was impossible to finish getting rid of the leaves, in view of the fact that one hour´s raking only made less than one-third of the garden lawn free from leaves layer, hence, we decided to schedule an extra raking day to clean the lawn before it is too late.
For joining a new group or an association, both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation should exist. From our insider site, we showed her energetically the extrinsic motivation, to be specific, the attractiveness of the garden, such as easy communication, open ears, inclusiveness, valid group structure, and resilient community, which are technically very attractive for new arrivals. We do this every time to welcome new people with garden interests. Obviously, it doesn't work every time. Maybe for people who have inclusiveness needs is attractive, for native speakers don´t. So the conclusion is, for seeking native speakers to join, the project itself should be probably matched to their special intrinsic motivations.
Community dinner
As the tradition of the Garden A, we went to dinner together at the end of the year, reflecting on the year in the garden and also appealing to take care of the mental health of each garden member. Personally, it is one of the sweetest things that happened this year in this garden association.
Although the dinner itself is exclusive, we have to register for the dinner officially before, but promotes an inclusive atmosphere.
The new restaurant we booked is neu renovated, with twinkly fairy lights everywhere, vintage local Bremen photography wall art, and a season menu chalkboard hanging from the ceiling. We felt very cozy and fulfilled I guess. The restaurant knocked the small dinner tables together to make a long dinner table look-alike extra for us. We met at 19:30 and only ordered some drinks or starters while waiting for someone else. Some people caught up with each other since some of us were not so active in the garden after the season was gone. I showed the person across from me the work in progress of my new project proposal while others chatted. Of course, before showing I asked around if it would disturb them if I put my laptop on the dining table. People without doubt allowed me, and they were of course continuing with their small talks, maybe the screen wasn´t easily accessible from all sides, only the guy who sitting across me had listened to my work report. That was quick, a few minutes after he showed his interest in the proposal and working together with me to make things happen we backed again to the small chat we had a few minutes ago. I assumed that people would be more liked to be listened to or to be cared about tonight than ever.
The others were not so late for the dinner, quickly we ordered the meal, and quickly we finished our meal, without any long small talk. While someone was having his dessert, some people were getting started to leave. That was acceptable, which in my opinion would leave a negative image between the garden members, but the truth is, that we could do what we would like to do. So this is the last night and last positive memory I had with a dozen garden members together this year.
Winter gardening during the storm
Storm Zoltan has battered Germany with gale-force winds and heavy rain recently, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. That was on Thursday morning, and I didn´t even know the storm was coming as I got on the train and left Bremen. I thought that was just another normal German rainy day, and I will be back in Bremen again as usual.
As I expected, it rained heavily like usual, I was more than happy because I was proud of being well prepared with my rain shoes, raincoat, and warm clothes. This garden I visited today is in Berlin, It's been two months since my last visit. The first time´s visit of this garden in winter leaves me quite an impression. There were a lot of differences, the plants were not thick and dense anymore, and something felt missing. Unlike in summer, when people cannot distinguish plants from plants, in winter, only tall cabbage and low-growing plants are outstanding. The house owner plants herbs in his garden, in summer we harvested mostly young ground elders, but now they are gone, instead myosotis, wintercress, venus kramm are everywhere. The popular rucola is even gradually disappearing from our sight.
In summer several volunteers were helping the house owner, while he taught them knowing wild edible plants. I am also one of them too. As the main assistant who helps him earn money through harvesting noted, the volunteers in winter are not regularly coming to help anymore, so am I. The bad weather causes low participation, also fewer plants to harvest too I guess. Today I am here just out of curiosity. But for the new year´s begin she plans for a big gathering around action for both the house owner and the volunteers, to celebrate the new start of the season.
So today I was alone in the garden for the harvest, actually, they told me after 3 hours of collecting I harvested too much for them, which in summer the amount like today was quite not enough. I harvested myosotis and rucola mostly, maybe the Rucola is especially the plant with big leaves, so not like young ground elders they take up a lot of space in the collecting basket. It perhaps made the illusion that I harvested too much. Since I´ve never been in this garden during heavy rain before, today I had a discovery that small snails like hiding under the ground-ivy leaves rather than hairy myosotis. As the wind and the rain got stronger it was also the time that I had to take the train back home. And then I also discovered the truth that the wind and rain went even stronger as evening drew on, and it was actually a storm.
Final notes
I hope you liked this garden observation from 2023. It´s not the last one grom 2023, but it is also kind of a summary of this year. The next closing blog should share about cleaning the garden and knowing people in the garden.
I’m looking forward to an exciting year, and I hope you will join me on that journey.
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