The „Keimzelle“ (engl)

Wasteland Into Gardens • Crops in the City • Social Gardening For All • Eat the City • Living in the Vegetables

We’ve started to grow vegetables, herbs and plants at the „Öhlmühlenplatz“ in Hamburg St. Pauli. Anyone who wants to, can come and garden with us.

Regular Meetings: 

Thursdays from 5pm: Gardening and Planning – everyone who wants to help plan the development of the Keimzelle is invited. Sundays from 4pm: Gardening for all.

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Eat the City

The Keimzelle, a small social garden established in May 2011, can be found in Karolinenviertel, Hamburg. It’s a small community garden, that is, it’s a place that anyone can use – it’s a place to garden with others, to simply relax, or to meet people. Nobody needs to be a member of any group or association to participate in the Keimzelle.

In the garden a variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers are grown. Here the earth can be hoed and watered. Here people can find insects and plants that aren’t so commonly seen in a big city. Even the taste isn’t missed out on; the fruits and harvest of the Keimzelle are shared jointly.

‚Urban Gardening‘

The cultivation of plants in the city isn’t just a trend. It’s rather the expression of the desire many people have in their lives: to shape their own living and working environment. And, above all, to reclaim the production of food.

Social Gardening

A social garden in the city is much more than gardening. Globally, gardening is an expression of human culture. Gardening in public spaces transcends communication barriers – reservations, limitations and fears disappear. Conversations begin easily and together people build the city both spatially and socially.

Onto the Site

The Keimzelle is still a small social garden, but we have grand ideas. In 2010 ‚The Wish Production‘ for re-development of the old St. Pauli cattlemarket hall site began, and as a result a multitude of ideas for the site have been developed – and a particularly frequently mentioned idea is the desire for green spaces.

Obstacles and facts

So far technical and bureaucratic obstacles have prevented the building of a social garden on the site. However, in anticipation of the large garden on the other side of Feldstrasse, there was the opportunity to start a garden on the west end of Ölmühlen Platz – the beginning of a germling (Keimzelle).

The Keimzelle proves that social horticulture in St. Pauli is both possible and a necessity. It is a communicative place for people who pass by, garden or just wish to relax. But it is far too small to enable eveyone in the neighbourhood to garden and to begin to become self sufficient.

The Goal is Clear:

In spring 2012 a vegetable garden will flourish on the site of the old cattlemarket hall – there will be a large social garden for all: self-organized, non-commercial and colorful.