Garden: Prinzessinnengarten Moritzplatz, Germany

By Luisa for Kinfolk Magazine. 

For half a century a small town Moritzplatz, a once thriving community of shopping and commerce, hid in the shadows of the Berlin Wall. In 2009, the sun returned to this forgotten corner of the world. An enterprising group of ‘nomadic agriculturalists’ have freed up the 6,000 square feet of unused land, turned it all into a “Prinzessinnengärten” (which translates to “Princesses’ Garden”). The Prinzessinnengärten is a place where families, neighbours, experts and those curious can come together and build an organic vegetable garden. All grown in plastic boxes, in old milk cartons or in large sacks of rice which are all easily transportable. When the weather turns cold, the whole garden moves down the block for the winter!

In Prinzessinnengärten, community gathering is encouraged. On summer nights, everyone gathers for family-style dinners. There is also a small cafe (housed in an abandoned container), serving organic beverages and an outdoor restaurant whose menu features dishes made with fresh ingredients gathered in the garden and with tables and chairs scattered between green dappled sunbeams.

During the ‘hiver’, or wintertime, the crops are sold at the Markthalle (covered markets) and on Sommernächte, or summer nights when the air is warm, the menus are decided by what is in season.